Download Crossfire of fear: propaganda in the US war on terrorism

Crossfire of Fear
Propaganda in the US War on Terrorism
Anders G. Romarheim
Hovedoppgave i Statsvitenskap, Det samfunnsvitenskapelige
fakultet
UNIVERSITETET I OSLO
Spring 2005
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1.
2.
3.
INTRODUCTION .....................................................................................1
1.1
Propaganda.............................................................................................3
1.2
War on terrorism ...................................................................................6
1.3
The Bush administration and the American people ...........................7
1.4
Outline.....................................................................................................9
PROPAGANDA ANALYSIS: PROBLEMS AND METHODS...............11
2.1
Propaganda analysis ............................................................................12
2.2
Types of definitions ..............................................................................13
2.3
Empirical sources .................................................................................15
2.4
Transparency, reliability and validity................................................18
2.5
Measuring effects: Surveys .................................................................19
2.6
Limitations and recurrent problems..................................................21
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ............................................................23
3.1
Terrorism, communication and rationality.......................................23
3.1.1
Terrorism: A violent communicative political strategy .................24
3.1.2
Mass Communication and its effects .............................................28
3.1.3
Approaching rationality and rational choice..................................31
3.1.4
Normative, semantic and psychological aspects............................32
3.2
Propaganda defined .............................................................................35
3.2.1
Jowett & O’Donnell: Deliberate and systematic ...........................36
3.2.2
Jaques Ellul: Total propaganda leading to action ..........................37
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3.2.3
The legacy of propaganda analysis................................................ 39
3.2.4
Synthesis ........................................................................................41
3.3
4.
Propaganda: comparative aspect .......................................................43
3.3.1
Typology of propaganda: White, grey, and black ......................... 44
3.3.2
Religion, information, education and propaganda ........................ 45
3.3.3
Public diplomacy, psychological operations and spin................... 46
3.3.4
Propaganda: exploiting conventions of rhetoric............................ 50
3.4
Propaganda devices ............................................................................. 52
3.5
Conclusions...........................................................................................58
ANALYSIS: PROPAGANDA IN THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION’S
WAR ON TERRORISM ................................................................................ 61
5.
4.1
Ideology and purpose of the propaganda campaign ........................ 61
4.2
Context ..................................................................................................63
4.3
The propagandist and the propaganda organization....................... 65
4.4
Target audience.................................................................................... 66
4.5
Media utilization techniques ............................................................... 67
SPECIAL TECHNIQUES TO MAXIMIZE EFFECT .............................. 69
5.1
The conception of the War on Terrorism.......................................... 70
5.1.1
Who are the terrorists?...................................................................72
5.1.2
No distinctions, no neutrality......................................................... 73
5.1.3
Ride the bandwagon ...................................................................... 74
5.1.4
Make no mistake about it, we are determined ............................... 76
5.2
Beyond Afghanistan: The doctrine of prevention ............................ 77
5.2.1
The Axis of Evil............................................................................. 78
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5.2.2
Freedom, liberty, humanity and peace...........................................79
5.2.3
Fear and patriotism: end of discussion...........................................81
5.2.4
Preventive, not pre-emptive ...........................................................83
5.2.5
Smoking guns and mushroom clouds ............................................84
5.3
5.3.1
al Qaeda is Iraq...............................................................................87
5.3.2
Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) ...............................89
5.3.3
Saddam captured “Like a Rat”.......................................................91
5.3.4
Greeted as liberators.......................................................................92
5.3.5
America is a more secure country, the world is better off .............93
5.4
6.
Broader pattern of the special techniques .........................................94
COUNTERPROPAGANDA, REACTIONS AND EFFECTS .................97
6.1
Counterpropaganda.............................................................................97
6.1.1
Own goals undermining the propaganda strategy..........................98
6.1.2
Counterpropaganda from abroad: Bin Laden statements ............100
6.1.3
Domestic counterpropaganda: Michael Moore and the NYT.......101
6.2
7.
War with Iraq.......................................................................................85
Audience reactions, Effects and evaluation. ....................................104
6.2.1
Within the USA............................................................................105
6.2.2
Outside The USA .........................................................................108
CONCLUSIONS ..................................................................................113
7.1
Theory implications ...........................................................................113
7.2
The Bush administration’s use of propaganda ...............................115
7.3
In a crossfire of fear ...........................................................................119
REFERENCES ...........................................................................................121
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Preface
Research projects evolve, sometimes taking you to interesting but unforeseen
academic realms. In the present instance, what started as a project with mainly
empirical ambitions soon showed that the theory aspect was equally interesting. The
natural outcome was a two-pronged project with theoretical ambitions as well, with a
wider emphasis on definitional issues surrounding propaganda.
I never expected this project to be as multidisciplinary as it has become. In
addition to political science literature, the analysis has drawn on works from
psychology, communications theory, linguistics, philosophy, and sociology.
Propaganda analysis extends into all of these sciences, tending to become anaemic if
it gets stuck within any one of these camps. As Jacques Ellul put it: “Propaganda is a
technique rather than a science. But it is a modern technique – that is, it is based on
one or more branches of science” (Ellul 1973:3).
I am much obliged to the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI).
It has provided me with good working facilities and a research milieu that has been –
and still is – very rewarding to be part of. If it were not for the knowledgeable staff at
NUPI’s library, I might still have been walking around the dim aisles of some library.
It is also appropriate to acknowledge the great contributions of my proofreading panel at NUPI. The thoughtful comments provided by Andreas Seliaas,
Henrik Thune, Benjamin de Carvalho, Daniel Heradstveit, Morten Bremer Mærli,
Kristin M. Haugevik, and Geir Arne Fredriksen have been priceless. A fine job was
also done by Susan Høivik on improving the linguistic quality of this work. It soon
became clear that her suggestions stretched far into the most intricate substantial
aspects of this work.
My tutor and good friend Knut Midgaard has also played a very important role
in this project. Without his staunch support, and steadfast determination to see this
through, it is hard to conceive what this thesis would have looked like. His generosity
and ability to let students shape their own projects is a quality every tutor should
posses. It has been a pleasure working with you. Thank you, Knut.
Time and again I have felt that final completion of this project has been only
weeks and days away, and that I would soon have a publishable manuscript at hand.1
However, new challenges always emerged, and one of the most important lessons I
have learned throughout this project was coming to terms with the fact that all
conceivable problems could not be solved. Each time completion seemed imminent, I
have – with considerable disappointment – been proven wrong. Until now –
Anders G. Romarheim
Oslo, April 2005
1
For additional copies of this work, go to: http://www.nupi.no/IPS/?module=Articles;action=Article.publicShow;ID=986
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1. Introduction
All warfare is based on deception
– Sun Tzu, The Art of War, Chapter I
This thesis is an analysis of the propaganda campaign that accompanied the Bush
administration’s war on terrorism after 9/11. Such an empirical case study
necessitates a theoretical pillar: a definition of propaganda. Consequently, a main
object here will be to discuss various concepts of propaganda with a view to forming
a useful and academically fruitful definition to be employed in this study.
In the early 21st century a focal point of scholars, politicians and the news
media has been the global war on terrorism. Efforts to combat the new and more
deadly generation of terrorism have become a major concern for most key actors in
international politics, and none more so than the United States of America – the target
of the 9/11 attacks in 2001. The attacks on New York’s World Trade Center are
among the most spectacular terrorist attacks ever to occur in the Western world. And
as Nicholas Cull points out: “Propaganda subsequently became a major feature of the
‘war on terrorism’ that followed” (Cull et al. 2003:xx).
The above quote defines the point of entry for this analysis. The question is not
whether the Bush administration used propaganda in the war on terrorism. The
existence of a propaganda dimension to the war on terrorism is all too evident to be
debated. It has even been argued that: “The propaganda war is the most integrated
part of the war on terror” (Snow 2003:23).
This analysis seeks to determine what sort of propaganda has been used in the
war on terrorism, and to move on to consider the effect of that propaganda. This will
involve providing a systematic account of what propaganda strategies, and
propaganda devices, have been dominant in the propaganda campaign of the war on
terrorism. The aim is also to examine how the propaganda resonated among the quite
1
diverse target audiences, in order to assess the effect of the propaganda campaign.
The three main research questions are as follows:
1. What is propaganda, how should it be defined?
2. What propaganda strategies and devices have been applied by the Bush administration
in the war on terrorism?
3. How effective has this propaganda campaign been?
One ambition of this study is to give theory discussions and empirical analysis
equally high priority. This is different from merely applying theory to explain
empirical material, and also different from conducting a purely theoretically
orientated study. The three research questions will be worked with in the order they
are listed in here. Starting with theory questions, proceeding with finding propaganda
strategies and devices in the empirical material, and finishing off with an assessment
of how effective the propaganda campaign has been.
The main argument put forward here is that the Bush administration has used
a wide range of propaganda strategies in the war on terrorism in order to influence
very diverse audiences. Among of the most effective strategies have been fear
appeals. Since creating fear is normally one of the main goals of a terrorist campaign
too, the public – particularly the American public – have ended up in a crossfire of
fear, triggered both by terrorists and US authorities.
Furthermore, a population living in fear may be willing to accept harsh
political measures that restrict their personal freedom, if they believe this will
enhance their security or deal with what they perceive as a great threat. Finally, the
Bush administration employed the propaganda device transfer extensively, as it
attempted to merge the different phases in the “war on terrorism”. Transfer is a
propaganda device that involves transferring the attributions and connotations of one
phenomenon onto another seemingly unrelated phenomenon.
2
The remainder of this introduction chapter will be devoted to a few opening
remarks concerning the phenomenon to be studied (propaganda), the empirical case
to be studied (the war on terrorism), and the main actor to be studied (the Bush
administration). Some observations will also be provided on measuring the effect
propaganda has on its audience. Finally, the chapter concludes with an outline of the
subsequent chapters.
1.1 Propaganda
A central problem in propaganda theory is to distinguish propaganda from other
forms of communication. We take as our point of departure two seminal works in the
literature on propaganda analysis, Propaganda and Persuasion (1st ed. 1986) by
Garth S. Jowett & Victoria O’Donnell, and Jacques Ellul’s Propaganda (1st ed.
1965). It will be argued that these two works form a good starting point for defining
propaganda, and that the best solution is to combine their approaches. Hence, this
thesis is much indebted to – and heavily influenced by – these two books. The
framework for analysis is a slightly modified version of Jowett & O’Donnell’s tenstep propaganda analysis, with a keen eye to Ellul’s descriptive work focusing on
propaganda in society.
Propaganda is defined as follows in the present study: 2
Definition I:
Propaganda is systematic strategic mass communication conveyed by an
organization to shape perceptions and manipulate the cognitions of a specific
audience. Its ultimate goal is to direct the audience’s behaviour to achieve a
response that furthers the political objectives of the propaganda organization.
A clarification: In propaganda, as here defined, there is no invitation to
dialogue. In this respect propaganda differs from rhetoric – again, as defined here.
The normative definition of rhetoric that is suggested here consists of Aristotle’s
(1941:1329) centuries-old definition, supplemented with Jowett & O’Donnell’s
(1999:28) contemporary approach to persuasion:
2
All definitions used widely in this thesis are assembled in a list in appendix I on page 127.
3
Definition II:
Rhetoric is the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of
persuasion, persuasion being potentially – and ideally – the outcome of an
interactive communicative process.
In rhetoric, when defined in this way, relevant and sincere argumentation will
play a central role, and the principles of relevance and veracity will be respected
(Andersson and Furberg 1973). This may also be true of instances, or elements, of
propaganda, so there may be some overlap between propaganda and rhetoric. For the
propagandist, however, the choice of instruments for influencing his target is a
question of strategy, here to be defined as a plan for achieving a certain goal. So
the propagandist is not interested in an interactive process with mutual influencing.
In this study, it has been deemed fruitful to introduce the concept of
propaganda device, defined as an argument structure – or style – that exceeds
the limits of rhetoric. Donald C. Bryant once said: “the major techniques of
propaganda are long known rhetorical techniques gone wrong” (from Jowett &
O’Donnell 1999:41). This statement will be true of what we call propaganda devices.
In the empirical analysis, 15 strategies propaganda will be identified in the
official statements of the Bush administration. As each strategy relies on one or more
propaganda devices, these devices are considered to be sub-units that make up
propaganda strategies. The list of propaganda devices used in this study counts 12
different devices.3
To what extent has the strategic communication of the Bush administration in
the war on terrorism had the character of propaganda, and to what extent has it had
the character of rhetoric? Here we subscribe to the position of Caroline Page: “War
predetermines the use of propaganda” (Page 1996:41). As Sun Tzu pointed out in the
5th century BC: “All Warfare is based on Deception” (Sun Tzu 1963:66).4 If one
keeps these two statements in mind, it is far from sensational to suggest that the “war
3
‘Propaganda techniques’ and ‘propaganda devices’ are at times used interchangeably in propaganda literature. In this
work the term ‘propaganda device’ will be used. Appendix II (pp. 128) presents a list of all the propaganda devices applied
in this study. They are explained in section 3.4.
4
By “Deception” Sun Tzu seems to imply propaganda, espionage and psychological operations at the tactical level. It
should be noted that in Chapter 3 it will be argued that much of what is called propaganda is not deception.
4
on terrorism”, like all other wars, is based firmly on propaganda, including deceptive
propaganda directed towards the enemy. If a nation wants to succeed in war, it would
be unwise not to use propaganda.
Considering how the term is used in ordinary language, it should be pointed
out that propaganda need not be as bad as its reputation. After the Second World War
it has been largely used in a derogative way in everyday language. This is somewhat
undeserved: propaganda can serve good ends as much as bad ends. Moreover, it may
contain some rhetorical elements: it need not always be limited to “rhetorical
techniques gone wrong”. Those sceptical to any kind of propaganda should recall that
both sides used propaganda in the First and Second World Wars, and it played a
crucial role in defeating international Communism during the Cold War.
When a term is plagued by negative connotations and associations,
substitutable synonyms or euphemisms will normally emerge. The Bush
administration itself would probably describe its communication as “public
diplomacy” or “rhetoric”. In Chapter 3 it will be argued that most of what is
commonly referred to as “public diplomacy” has lain within the realms of
propaganda, and that an exact borderline between rhetoric and propaganda is very
hard to draw, especially as regards ordinary non-academic usage of the terms.
Despite this, one must be able to demonstrate that something is propaganda by
pointing out credible textual evidence for such a claim. A quote-based approach has
therefore been chosen in this thesis. It is not sufficient merely to say that this speech
or that paragraph is of a propagandistic nature: that will have to be proven, by
presenting specific quotes revealing the propaganda devices at work. This must, of
course, be done within a fruitful theoretical framework for propaganda analysis. A
main source for the analytical framework used here will be Jowett & O’Donnell
(1999:279–298).
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1.2 War on terrorism
Many questions come to mind in examining the war on terrorism. Is this “war” really
a war? Moreover, is the “war” that is going on really directed at the phenomenon of
terrorism? It will be argued that both the usage of “war” and the claim that it is
against “terrorism” are problematic speech acts that must be analysed closely.5 A key
question will always be: who defines – and in accordance with what criteria – who is
an international terrorist? (Beck 2003:167).
The Bush administration has also often used the phrase “war on terror” as the
campaign evolved. The word “terror” is less specific than “terrorism”: indeed, it
might be argued that terrorism is just one of many forms of terror. However, the
initial label “war on terrorism” is still widely used, and will be used and studied in
this thesis.
These questions compel considerations of what criteria distinguish terrorism
from other phenomena, and require a definition of terrorism. This will be done in
Chapter 3.1. The global war on terrorism is a telling example of what security policy
is really about in the post-modern and globalized world of the 21st century. “National
security is no longer national security in the simple conventional sense” (Beck
2002:115). So-called “post-modern warfare” is increasingly waged by non-state
actors seeking to bypass the superior military power of nation-states. Their targets are
often soft; they also attack populations and symbolic targets. Old distinctions
between civilian and military targets have become less relevant. (Schultz & Vogt
2003:6–7)6
By studying the war on terrorism we shed light on another question: how states
engage in international armed conflicts, with the increasing importance of human
security at the expense of more conventional state security.7 Established notions of
what is the rule and what is the exception as regards foreign intervention in “internal
5
Speech acts will be dealt with in more detail in sections 3.1.2 and 4.5. Austin introduced “speech acts” in 1955.
Schultz & Vogt recapitulate ideas presented in Creveld (1991). See also Robert Cooper (2003) and Mark Leonard (ed.
2002) for background and further insights into warfare and security policies in the post-modern world.
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6
affairs” are withering. To some extent, the humanitarian intervention in Kosovo
paved the way for decreasing reliance on UN mandates as a necessity for wars that
are not strictly self-defence. The war on terrorism has a distinct element of forwardlooking preventive “justice”. The concepts of preventive and pre-emptive warfare
must be revisited and possibly redefined for the post-modern world (Freedman 2003).
At present, we are witness to an increasingly unpredictable threat situation with a
decreasing focus on national borders and the principle of state sovereignty.
1.3 The Bush administration and the American people
The United States is the key actor and driving force in what President G.W. Bush has
presented as “a monumental struggle between good and evil” (Woodward 2002:45).
With the US the sole remaining superpower in a unipolar world, one need not argue
at length in order to justify researching US foreign policy in the study of international
relations. However, the findings of this study also have implications for the political
situation within the United States. The support of the American people is a crucial
asset for the administration in Washington DC. As Henry Kissinger once said, the
acid test of a policy is its ability to obtain domestic support (from George 1980:233).
Some have argued that there is in a democracy an inherent need for
propaganda.8 Where the news media are free, propaganda tends to be omnipresent,
resulting in a cacophony. There has also been an intrusion of public relations into
politics. Governing now includes conducting a Permanent campaign (Blumenthal
1980:7). The logic and intensity of election campaigns and offensive marketing has
forced their way into everyday doings in and around the White House. Sidney
Blumenthal (1980) described the permanent campaign as a “philosophy of
governing” that is here to stay.
The governed expect those who govern to explain their policies for the real
reasons, and not for reasons they believe will be most acceptable to the public.
7
These concepts of security are not diametrically differing counterparts. “The meaning of human security is synonymous
with that of ‘the security of the people’, and includes the security of society” (Lodgaard 2004:21).
8
See Johnson-Cartee & Copeland (2004:137), Ellul (1973:232) and Jowett & O’Donnell (1999:331). The present situation
for the USA is encapsulated in the expression: “The surround–sound propaganda of our society” (Snow 2003:32).
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Regrettably, this ideal does not always materialize in real-life politics. “Politicians
now regularly select public rationales that they think will sell rather than
discussing the true motivations for policy proposals” (Fritz et al. 2004:19).
The relationship between people and government in times of crisis is
peculiar. Uncelebrated leaders may revive their positions and become national heroes
around whom the people flock, if they give the impression of dealing with an external
threat. Using fear in order to mobilize the public for war and sacrifice is well-known
throughout history. Propaganda will be effective if the public at large accepts its
tenets and demands for action.
“Fear is a great motivator” (Kegley Jr. & Raymond 2004:38) – this has been
proved time and again in both totalitarian and democratic countries. Accordingly,
President Harry Truman was advised to “Scare the hell out of them” (Freedman
2004:7), when he mobilized the American people to take on international
Communism at the beginning of the Cold War.
It was during Truman’s term of office the post-war Nuremberg trials took
place. Unsurprisingly, a similar mechanism of invoking fear was at work in one of
the most totalitarian repressive regimes ever to have existed. Hermann Göring
rejected allegations that their Nazi system was bad for the people since the
undemocratic nature of the system forced wars on the people that it did not want.
Göring’s retort to these allegations should not be brushed aside without due
examination of his reasoning:
Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.
That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the
pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same
way in any country (from Kegley Jr. & Wittkopf 1997:371).9
9
Rampton & Stauber (2003:137) have also related this quote to the war on terrorism and the war in Iraq.
8
1.4 Outline
For propaganda analysis it is quite difficult to determine what is theory and
what is research method, as the choice of theoretical framework has implications for
the methodology and vice versa. Particular attention will be paid to problems and
research methods in Chapter 2, whereas the theoretical debates and framework
applied will be dealt with in more detail in Chapter 3.
Chapter 3 deals with three interrelated questions: What is terrorism? What is
propaganda? What are the devices of propaganda that distinguish it from other sorts
of communication? On these three questions the literature lacks consensus. It will
therefore be important to work with propaganda theory – not only for the sake of
obtaining a useful tool for the subsequent analysis, but also to achieve an
understanding of propaganda, and to make this work relevant to the theory debates.
The analysis of the Bush administration’s use of propaganda in the war on
terrorism – is conducted in Chapters 4, 5 and 6. Chapter 4 deals with basic ideology,
context and the communication situation for the propaganda of the war on terrorism.
The role and nature of the Bush administration as an organization disseminating
political mass communication such as propaganda will also be analysed in Chapter 4.
In Chapter 5 the focus will be on applied language. Of utmost importance for a
transparent propaganda analysis is finding textual evidence that demonstrate the
propaganda strategies at work. In Chapter 5, propaganda devices that form a coherent
propaganda strategy will be distinguished in the empirical material.
Chapter 6 is devoted to analysing the effect of the propaganda campaign. How
well it has resonated with the public, and what thrust counterpropaganda has gained
in confronting the Bush administration’s propaganda? An assessment of support for
policies will be an important parameter in measuring the effects.
Chapter 7 presents the most important findings of this study. Since the ‘war on
terrorism’ is much debated in society, these findings should be of interest also outside
international relations circles. Chapter 7 will also offer suggestions for possible future
research projects using propaganda analysis, or studying the war on terrorism.
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2. Propaganda analysis: Problems and methods
This study will rely on both qualitative and quantitative research methods. Jowett &
O’Donnell’s ten-step framework for propaganda analysis is predominantly
qualitative. For measuring the effect of propaganda, quantitative surveys will be used.
The main focus of this propaganda analysis is to find textual documentation for the
propaganda strategies and devices applied by the Bush administration. Let us restate
the main research questions as set forth in the introduction:
1. What is propaganda, how should it be defined?
2. What propaganda strategies and devices have been applied by the Bush administration
in the war on terrorism?
3. How effective has this propaganda campaign been?
The first research question includes two pillars. It has a descriptive and normative
component. Research question two has a characterizing and a descriptive aim. It will
encompass finding applied propaganda devices in the 15 strategies dealt with here.10
Research question three is an entirely effect-oriented question. The following chapter
will provide insights into how these three questions will be analysed and answered.
The word propaganda appears in all three research questions; consequently,
considerable effort will focus on finding a useful and fruitful definition of
propaganda. Methods for crafting definitions must be dealt with critically. This is
because: “we tend to forget that definitions are not part of the natural world – that
they are in fact, human inventions” (Foss et al 1991:13). The questions of how to
define, and what type of definition to seek, will be dealt with in section 2.2.
10
The number ‘15’ is in itself not important. Through the research process some 20 strategies have been worked with. Only
the 15 considered most important are presented here. It could have been 12 or 17 as a fixed number was not sought after.
11
2.1 Propaganda analysis
Jowett & O’Donnell have introduced a ten-step framework for propaganda analysis
that is steadily winning ground in the field of propaganda studies. It is precise and
fairly transparent. The complex process of propaganda analysis is broken down to ten
manageable operations, and the steps can be seen as specifications of the research
question. In the present study, a slightly modified version of this framework will be
used, with their steps 3 & 4 merged, and likewise for steps 8 & 10, reducing the ten
steps to eight. The grounds for making these shifts will be presented below. The
original ten steps are as follows:
1. The ideology and purpose of the propaganda campaign
2. The context in which the propaganda occurs
3. Identification of the propagandist
4. The structure of the propaganda organization
5. The target audience
6. Media utilization techniques
7. Special techniques to maximize effect
8. Audience reaction to various techniques
9. Counterpropaganda, if present
10. Effects and evaluation
(Jowett & O’Donnell 1999:280)
A few additional remarks are necessary at this juncture. Jowett & O’Donnell’s
(1999:281) definition of ideology is based on the works of Martha Cooper (1989).
Ideology can be defined as follows:
Definition III:
Ideology is a coherent world view that determines how arguments will be
received and interpreted.
Raymon Aron presents a wider definition of ideology: “An ideology is any set
of ideas accepted by individuals or peoples, without attention to their origin or value”
(from Ellul 1973:116). Ideology is a dogmatic phenomenon in which certain ideas are
removed from any kind of real discussion. Propaganda shares this characteristic of
terminating discussion.
Steps two through six are basically elaborations on some of the basics of
traditional analyses of communication. They deal with topics such as context, sender,
12
recipient and media channel. Steps three and four will be merged in the analysis,
forming the step: The propagandist and the propaganda organization. This is done
for two reasons: the two steps are fairly similar, and some definitions of propaganda
specify that only organizations can produce propaganda (Ellul 1973:20).
Step seven has to do with “special techniques to maximize effect”. The issue
of special techniques is very important since it sheds light on how the propagandist
operates. Jowett & O’Donnell (1999:290) “have deliberately chosen not to make a
comprehensive list of propaganda techniques”. Creating – or abstaining from creating
– such a list is one of the great disputes within propaganda studies. Their framework
for analysis is in no way incompatible with the making of such a list. A recent study
by Johnson-Cartee & Copeland (2004:164–171) does just that. A list of propaganda
devices will also be made in this study, although it does not purport to be exhaustive.
An integral part of measuring the effect of propaganda involves assessing any
counterpropaganda that may occur. If propaganda is highly effective it may succeed
in winning “the battle of words”. The terminology and tenets of the propaganda will
then be adopted by the audience at large, and oppositional voices will be silenced or
marginalized. This is one reason why step nine in Jowett & O’Donnell’s framework
calls for an analysis of counterpropaganda.
That leaves us with step eight and ten to be explained. They will be merged
into one step. The “reactions of the audience” are considered to be part of “the effect
of propaganda” in the present analysis (see Ch. 6.3). Chapter 6 will in its entirety be
devoted to answering the third main research question in this thesis, as to how
effective the propaganda has been.
2.2 Types of definitions
As definitional questions are crucial to this study, it is necessary to present the
framework used for defining propaganda and other core terms. Definitions will be
written in a bold font, as they are cornerstones of the analytical framework. The study
will rely predominantly on the work of the philosopher Arne Naess. Naess (1953)
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provides an introduction to the basic concepts of logic with a particular focus on the
role language plays. He starts by identifying four categories of definitions:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Descriptive definitions of usage (Describing usage)
Normative definitions
(Suggestion or prescription for usage)
11
(Combination of 1 and 2)
Ideal definitions
Definitions as condensed characterizations (real–definitions)
(Naess 1953)
The first category has relevance to this study. It concerns the sort of definitions
found in dictionaries. A descriptive definition of usage is an expression of what a
certain word may refer to and how it is used. Such definitions are not attempts at
actively shaping language in order to make it more useful. There should not be a
normative aspect to such definitions: instead, precision is their aim.
Fruitful is the keyword for normative definitions. If the semantic meaning of a
word to be studied is diverse and evasive, one must take prescriptive measures in
order to conduct a meaningful analysis. Words of special importance to an analysis
must be defined precisely. For such a definition to be fruitful it may be necessary to
adjust the definition, even if that means omitting certain aspects of its ordinary usage.
Moreover, it may be useful to strip words of their negative connotations and
colloquial layers.
Category three is the type of definition the propaganda definition of this study
is. It would be optimal to wind up with a normative definition that also describes
large parts of the usage of the term “propaganda”.12 Since a total blend of the
normative and descriptive aspect of propaganda is perhaps unachievable, priorities
will need to be stated. For this study it will be more important to produce a fruitful
normative definition than to shape a descriptive definition that corresponds perfectly
with ordinary usage of the word propaganda. The need for a useful analytical tool
exceeds that of a perfect descriptive definition. Harold Lasswell, a main founder of
propaganda analysis argued: “For analytical purposes, however, it is permissible to
give the word propaganda an objective meaning” (Lasswell et al. 1935:3).
11
Naess does not label category 3 as ‘ideal definitions’. They are labelled so here because Naess does not provide a clear
English label for this category of definitions. Category 4 (‘Real-definitions’) are of very limited value to this study.
12
Naess (1953:171) underlines that the main ambition of such definitions is “to give descriptive definitions of usage and to
make more precise.”
14
2.3 Empirical sources
As the topic studied here is the use of propaganda by the Bush administration in the
war on terrorism, the empirical sources used will be the output of the Bush
administration in the “media war” that has accompanied the war on terrorism.13
Observing debates and speeches, and then tracking down various transcripts of them,
has been an important part of the project. Such sources provide largely primary data.
As regards the forms of governmental outputs, the approach of McEvoy-Levy
is relevant here. He studied public diplomacy and US foreign policy, so his
methodological priorities are quite relevant to this study. “(T)his study focuses on
official speeches, reports, hearings, ‘public’ letters and statements and press
conferences” (McEvoy-Levy 2001:2). Different types of government statements may
have different importance so “(T)he frequently recurring themes of the speeches are
the main units of analysis” (McEvoy-Levy 2001:7). A further criterion is of course
that the statements must form part of a broader propaganda strategy.
The empirical material available is overwhelming, so a selection will be made.
An important question to consider is: What gets through, and what is soon consigned
to oblivion? Propaganda aims to take hold solidly in the minds of the audience and is
therefore often quite repetitive. Any propaganda strategy that is not somewhat
persistent over time will therefore be disregarded in this analysis. The above has a
further important implication for this study. The time span studied should not be too
limited. One must not become lost in the ups and downs of media coverage and dayto-day public relations activities around the Bush administration.
The time span chosen for study is from “9/11” to 2 November 2004. This does
not imply that every single statement from this period must be studied with
painstaking accuracy: only the main propaganda strategies are of interest. September
11, 2001 is the obvious natural starting point for this study. The reason for choosing 2
November as the closing date is because this is the day when Bush won his re-
13
It is the strategic media war and not the tactical military psyops that will be studied. The distinction between these
different concepts will be explained in section 3.3.3.
15
election and secured a second term in office. In the age of the aforementioned
permanent campaign, winning re-election often defines everyday politics.
The speeches of the Bush administration are easily obtainable. Sites run by
US State Department, the Department of Defense and the White House have archives
where material is sorted chronologically.14 Additionally, TV stations such as C-Span
and its website (www.c-span.org) facilitate access to political information in video
format.
All statements made by prominent members of the Bush administration receive
media attention. So there is normally an abundance of material available that can
confirm crucial statements. Special attention has been paid to certain speeches
because of their importance. This goes for the State of the Union speeches, Bush’s
speech on launching the invasion of Iraq, as well as the speech he gave on the USS
Abraham Lincoln declaring that: “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of
Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed” (Bush 2003.05.01).
The quote above shows how references to statements by the Bush
administration will be dated: name of speaker yyyy.mm.dd. Since this analysis
contains many such references to media events, readability would suffer greatly if
they were all to be given long references leading to news outlets or URL addresses.15
One reason for making this choice is that preliminary readings of the material
revealed very little debate about what was actually said in the speeches. Discussions
in the news media following statements by the Bush administration have tended to
focus on interpretations of what was said, and not on the exact wording. There is not
much room for ‘black history’ in this realm, due to the vigilant scrutiny of the news
media.
14
The following websites are of great use in retrieving such material: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/ and
http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/archive.html Both sites have a chronological calendar index.
15
This choice resembles the approach that has been applied for other works on the Bush administration’s war on terrorism,
such as Freedman (2004), Woodward (2004) and Clarke (2004). Certain statements that are particularly controversial, or
difficult to obtain, will be provided with a specific reference to a text or an Internet source. All URL-addresses provided in
this thesis were tested in April 2005. They all worked then, but as time goes they run the risk of becoming outdated.
16
Woodward (2002 & 2004) and Clarke (2004) are very special sources. Bob
Woodward is a journalist legend with contacts of an extraordinary kind in
Washington. His credibility and fame within critical journalism are unsurpassed, as
he was central in giving President Nixon his political coup de grace with the
unravelling of the Watergate scandal. Woodward’s books have proven very helpful
due to their chronological structure that provides an overview of the wars of the Bush
administration.
Woodward has been granted unusually much time for interviewing President
Bush. This has both positive and negative effects. The positive effects are of course
greater insights. It should, however, be noted that a writer may well feel flattered at
being given so much time with the most powerful and sought-after interview object in
the world. Reciprocity goes a long way, and it is possible that Woodward might
become too friendly with the US President, thereby jeopardizing his “critical” voice.
Woodward can be said to be on the outside looking in. Richard Clarke, on
the other hand, is on the inside looking out. Clarke was colloquially referred to as the
Terrorism Czar, as he was the first person to be appointed as National Coordinator for
Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counterterrorism. Clarke was the crisis
manager on 9/11, and few others have a comparable extensive insight into the Bush
administration’s war on terrorism.
Clarke’s insider account of the war on terrorism has come across as vitriolic
criticism of the Bush administration. The release of his book was followed by
discrediting efforts towards Clarke by the White House. Dick Cheney (2004.03.11)
declared that: “Clarke wasn’t in the loop”, but this highly controversial claim was
rebutted by Condoleezza Rice the next day: “I would not use the word out of the
loop” (Rice 2004.03.12). None of the denigration of Clarke truly stuck, and his book
must be perceived as more than mere Bush-bashing.
With Clarke’s book, the “performative” aspect of the source must be
considered – i.e. what the speaker wants to achieve through his communication (Dahl
1994:36). That said, it is an “authoritative account of America’s most dangerous
immediate problem, how to deal with terrorism and Al Qaeda” (Urquhart 2004).
17
2.4 Transparency, reliability and validity
A high degree of reliability is desirable, but difficult to achieve for this kind of
study, because it relies partly on qualitative methods. Hellevik (1994: 43– 44) argues
that a lack of reliability normally has a negative effect on the validity of the analysis.
But sometimes reliability may knowingly be downgraded if the applied
operationalizations yield results of higher validity than other methods that score
higher on reliability.
For the present study, the list of propaganda devices has to include a few
devices to do any kind of justice to the complex phenomenon of propaganda. For
such an analysis Doob (1948:304) has stated: “the greater the number of
categories the less the reliability most generally will be”. Moreover, propaganda often
overlaps with rhetoric, and there is a chance that no two researchers would draw the
dividing line between these concepts identically.
The validity of this study relies largely on the definition of propaganda and
operalizations of propaganda devices. If the ideal definition of propaganda (type 3) to
be crafted later fails to capture much of the ordinary usage of the term, that would
suggest that the definition is not functioning satisfactorily. A question would then be
if what is analysed in this thesis is indeed the phenomenon of propaganda.
Another aspect is the operationalization of propaganda devices. If the devices
are not sensible and fruitful, or if they do not represent important aspects of the
techniques used by propagandists, the result will be lower validity. This underlines
the importance of the definitional issues to be discussed in Chapter 3.
Transparency is important for clarifying and shedding light on the research
process. The analytical steps must be clearly accounted for, and should come in an
intuitively logical order. Lack of transparency complicates fruitful critical readings of
a research project. As propaganda analysis has links into so many branches of the
social sciences and humanities, making it transparent is a particularly challenging
task. Ellul (1973) does not really present any stringent coherent list of factors and
parameters to consider for propaganda analysis. Jowett & O’Donnell’s (1999)
framework is preferable in that respect.
18
2.5 Measuring effects: Surveys
Ellul (1973:25) comments upon “how badly equipped opinion surveys are to gauge
propaganda.” However, as his book Propaganda progresses, his view changes
noticeably. Speaking of surveys, he says later: “This method can be employed
frequently and yields reasonably sure, fast results” (Ellul 1973:268). What becomes
evident is that survey research is among the best methods, not least for reasons of
practicality and parsimony reasons. Also Jowett & O’Donnell recommend the
propaganda analyst to look for evidence in opinion polls and surveys when trying to
assess the reactions of the audience (Jowett & O’Donnell 1999:296).
Ellul (1973:267) states that anthropological observation by infiltration into the
target audience is the ideal method for assessing the effects of propaganda. However,
he concludes that this method is nearly impossible to apply. To use such methods one
would need a team of skilled social scientists, and “these people must be well paid for
a long time for (apparently) doing nothing” (Ellul 1973:268).
Ellul claims that the intensity of opinions cannot be determined by surveys.
(Ellul 1973:269). This is an interesting observation even though it does not apply to
questions of all kinds – Likert-scale questions, for instance. There are also some true
or false questions regarding beliefs where the intensity dimension is less relevant.
Likert-scales questions typically ask respondents to state whether they agree [1],
disagree [2], strongly agree [3] or strongly disagree [4] with a statement. A neutral
position [5] is also an option, so Likert-scales have five default positions for
measuring intensity of opinions (Hellevik 1994:141). The survey results used in
Chapter 6 stem largely from Likert-scale questions.
Another problem with surveys is that they involve selecting a representative
sample of the population. If the entire population is not part of the propagandist’s
target audience, the sample errors and validity of the survey are affected negatively. It
might also be that those with a very low education level are under-represented in
surveys. Finally, a quote from PIPA on the difficulties of conducting scientific
surveys:
19
In addition to sampling error, one should bear in mind that question wording and
practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the
findings of opinion polls (Pew Center 2004:40).
The surveys used in this study to assess the effect of propaganda have been
conducted by professional agencies, PIPA and Pew. PIPA stands for the Program on
International Policy Attitudes, and is located at the University of Maryland. PIPA’s
research is conducted in companionship with Knowledge Networks. It is funded by
Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Ford Foundation. Nearly all PIPA surveys are
performed using a “nationwide panel, which is randomly selected from the entire
adult population and subsequently provided Internet access (PIPA 2004b:1).
A different polling institution is the Pew Research Center for the People and
the Press.16 Unlike PIPA’s Internet-based methodology, PEW relies on telephone
interviews and face-to-face interviews. This has pros and cons. Using Internet
questionnaires eliminates the personal feel to the interview. Errors stemming from the
fact that the respondent likes or dislikes the interviewer, and whether the respondent
is comfortable with being completely honest about its political views to the stranger
asking the questionnaire is to a great extent eliminated.
On the other hand, using the Internet represents a modest – yet noticeable –
technological challenge for some people. PIPA may have problems reaching people
who are uncomfortable with using the Internet. It is also very difficult to control
whether the respondents ask anyone for assistance on questions they find difficult.
Such problems may distort the representative nature of the sample population.
These problems must not be forgotten, but the author has confidence in the
results and findings of the surveys used for this thesis. Survey results must never be
mistaken for proven facts, but if a pattern becomes clear from several polling
institutions, it is rarely far off the mark. Table 2.1 presents an overview over the
number of respondents and margins of error for the surveys used in Chapter 6:
16
Pew’s research is funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts. Their polls are available from: http://people-press.org
20
Table 2.1
Survey Reference
PEW 2004
PIPA 2004a
PIPA 2004b
PIPA 2003a
PIPA 2003b
Pipa 2003c
PIPA 2001
Sample size
N= 6764
N = 968
N = 733
N= 9611
N= 1217
N= 1008
N = 602
Margin of Error
+/– 3.5 or 5%
+/– 3.2 to 4%
+/– 3.7%
N/A
+/– 3 to 4%
+/– 3 to 4.5 %
+/– 4%
Pew 2004 needs to be explained further. The sampling error was 5% for
Germany, France and Great Britain. It was 3.5% for Russia, Turkey, Pakistan, Jordan
and Morocco with a confidence level of 95%. When dealing with the attitudes of
Americans, PIPA’s works have been used more than Pew’s. One reason for this
choice is the frequent diachronic data in the PIPA material, which provide a more
coherent month-by-month picture of Americans’ sentiments towards the war on
terrorism.
It should also be mentioned that Pakistan and Morocco were polled only in
urban areas (Pew 2004:40). Furthermore, the high sample figure of 9,611 for PIPA
2003a occurs because that analysis was based on seven separate polls. An exact
margin of error is therefore not provided by PIPA, and consequently not here either.
2.6 Limitations and recurrent problems
One should always examine the limitations of a project. What limitations or
shortcomings are the most likely to influence the quality of the research product? The
heart-rending reality of all research projects is the necessity of delimitations. There is
an abundance of interesting threads looming about this study, many of which would
have deserved further exploration. One such delimitation is that this is not a study of
terrorism in general, or of al Qaeda in particular.
The object of study is the
propaganda dimension of the response to the al Qaeda attacks on New York’s World
21
Trade Center in 2001. Nevertheless, an understanding of al Qaeda, and its modus
operandi is still a useful supplement for a rewarding reading of this thesis.17
Another important delimitation deals with the source of the propaganda. It is
the executive branch with the White House and the Departments of State and Defense
that will be studied. The roles played by the military and the news media in
transmitting propaganda will only be dealt with sporadically. The study’s scope
would be different if the roles of the military and the news media actors were to be
studied more closely.
When it comes to recurrent problems there are a few factors to bear in mind.
Firstly, one often finds what one seeks. Here, we are looking for propaganda in the
mass communication of the Bush administration. Yet, there is much mass
communication stemming from the Bush administration that does not belong to the
category of propaganda as operationalized and defined here. A study of the rhetoric
of the war on terrorism, for example, is a different study. Even though such a study
would have to consider many of the same texts and statements analysed in this study.
Secondly, it is a fair criticism of this project to note that Africa and Africans
are not given much attention here. This has a natural reason: it reflects the resources
devoted by the Bush administration to forging public support among African nations
for the war on terrorism. Many African nations have in this respect had some of their
fears confirmed, as their own problems plummeted on the agenda as the war on
terrorism was moved to the forefront of international relations (Dagne 2002:3–6).
Finally, the author runs the risk of being branded a propagandist, since calling
George W. Bush a propagandist could be considered an instance of propagandistic
name-calling by some people.18 It should be underlined that this categorization is
done with a notion of propaganda as being inherently neither moral nor immoral.
That question must be seen in relation to the goal of the propaganda campaign.
17
The Age of Sacred Terror (Benjamin & Simon 2002) is a good introduction to the history of al Qaeda.
Johnson Cartee & Copeland define the labelling of others as propagandists as a propaganda device in itself. They call this
propaganda device “propaganda slinging” (Johnson Cartee & Copeland 2004:164).
18
22
3. Theoretical framework
This chapter will be structured around five main parts. First, terminology of special
importance to the thesis will be presented in section 3.1. For the definition of
terrorism, the work of Hoffman (1999) will be of special importance. Following this,
a discussion of various definitions of propaganda will be undertaken in section 3.2. A
full etymological analysis of propaganda will not be conducted in this study,
however.
Jowett & O’Donnell’s definition of propaganda is fruitful, yet it has certain
shortcomings that might be remedied. Jacques Ellul’s work is of special importance
in that regard (section 3.2.2). The definitional discussions will terminate with section
3.2.4, which includes the ‘ideal definition’ (type 3) of propaganda that combines
Naess’ normative and descriptive definitions.
The focus shifts somewhat in section 3.3, where propaganda is compared to
other related terms, including synonyms and euphemisms. A compare and contrast
approach will be adopted. In section 3.4 a list of 12 propaganda devices that serve as
building blocks for propaganda strategies will be presented. The list (Appendix II) is
intended as an operationalization and is not meant to be exhaustive.
3.1 Terrorism, communication and rationality
Terrorists need the media to gain attention for their cause, and the sensational
nature of their crimes drives up media ratings (Rampton & Stauber 2003: 133).
There is a symbiotic relationship between international terrorism and the news media.
In our time, a terrorist who fails to make it into the news headlines is normally not
very effective in enforcing his agenda (Hoffman 1999:132). Commercial news outlets
are more or less obliged to provide their audience with voluminous reports about
terrorism. “The most potent impact of terrorist attacks is that fear spreads far
beyond the act of violence” (Beck 2002:112).
23
Terrorism’s reliance on fear to influence people – and their leaders – makes
the war on terrorism exceptionally prone to fear-inciting propaganda. Terrorist groups
are themselves frequent issuers of propaganda, and terrorism tends to have a
communicative aspect to it. A definition of terrorism, and a discussion of the
foundations of communication theory, is therefore required before we can proceed
with the analysis. The perpetrators of 9/11 were al Qaeda members, so that
organization will be central throughout the discussion of what terrorism is.
Terrorism and communication are often referred to as rational activities.
Definitions of rationality will therefore be presented. As we shall soon see, the
requirements for labelling something as rational behaviour are quite strict. In this
study, propagandists are thought to practise some element of strategic thinking. More
precisely, they are thought to operate with instrumentality and intentionality. But let
us begin with a closer look at the phenomenon of terrorism.
3.1.1 Terrorism: A violent communicative political strategy
The meaning of the word “terrorism” has been subject to many changes, making it
very difficult to establish a consensual definition of the term (Hoffman 1999:15). In
the following, just as much will be said about what is not terrorism as about what
terrorism per se is. A starting point may be Hoffman’s (1999:43) broad definition of
terrorism as “the deliberate creation and exploitation of fear through violence or the
threat of violence in the pursuit of political change”.
Terrorism is usually defined as a strategy. It is not an ideology – the ideology
of a terrorist group may be rooted in Marxism, Nazism, Christianity, Islam,
nationalism or other similar intellectual and/or religious traditions. Terrorism is a
means that one either applies or refrains from using. It may be defined as follows:
Definition IV: 19:
Terrorism is a non-state actor’s systematic use – or threat of use – of destruction
on civilian non-combatants to create fear, generate attention to a political cause,
and to make someone other than the direct target of the crime yield to the
terrorists’ demands
19
The definition used here derives from the author, but is heavily influenced by discussions with Professor Tore Bjørgo. A
main tenet the author and Bjørgo share is that there are considerable grey zones surrounding the term terrorism.
24
This definition is crafted to serve several purposes and to distinguish terrorism
from related phenomena such as ‘guerrilla warfare’, ‘sabotage’, ‘organized crime’,
‘genocide’ and ‘state terror’. Terrorism is nearly always about breaking laws, and
encompasses various sorts of illegal activity. Such legal terms may be easier to work
with than to designate terrorism as evil. On the other hand, one should not degenerate
into apologetic attitudes towards terrorism. Genuine terrorists do operate with malice
and forethought. Nevertheless, deciding who is a terrorist and who is not can
sometimes be extremely difficult.
It follows from definition IV that states are not considered to be “terrorists”.
However, they may sponsor terrorism or commit state terror. If acts of terror are
committed by organizations that a territorial state is responsible for, one may
officially contact the state to denounce its activities. One may also appeal to
organizations like the UN for sanctions as a response to the ‘state terror’ that has
occurred. With non-state actors, this is not the case. One normally cannot contact
terrorists and expose them to mechanisms such as sanctions. Hence, it seems
appropriate and useful to define terrorists as non-state actors (Hoffman 1999:43).
Historically, state terror has caused the deaths of many more people than
terrorism has (Laqueur 1987:1–3, 11). On many occasions, states have terrorized
domestic and foreign populations – that is “to fill with terror or force into obedience
by threats or acts of violence” (Longmans 1992:1366). Terrorism and state terror are
not very different in moral terms, and state terror has proven the most lethal.
Another aspect of this distinction has to do with the randomness of violence.
Terrorism is sometimes completely random as regards who is targeted. If a terrorist
sets off a bomb at a tube station, there is no guarantee that he does not kill someone
he knows or likes. Here state terror differs from terrorism. If a person lives in an
oppressive totalitarian state employing state terror on its population, there are ways
for people to significantly reduce the risk of being exposed to state terror. If one
abides by all the rules and does not engage in behaviour considered regime-hostile,
one may greatly decrease the chances of being terrorized violently by the state.
25
The difference between terrorism and guerrilla warfare is not sharp. Guerrilla
movements often face an enemy they cannot defeat in an open traditional battlefield,
so they resort to asymmetric warfare to compensate for their military inferiority.
Unlike the case with terrorists, what are called guerrilla movements tend to have
territorial ambitions (Hoffman 1999:41). On the other hand, some of these
characteristics also apply to groups such as al Qaeda.20 Guerrilla warfare is typically
directed at strategic targets of military importance. If not, the guerrillas are
committing war crimes rather than terrorism.
Terrorism should be defined as having political ends and political demands
(Hoffman 1999:43). This is different from organized crime, which has economic
ends. The Colombian fraction FARC is a borderline case here. It is important to note
that most terrorist groups are actively engaged in providing funds for their attacks.
But there is a critical level for such fund-raising activities. The question to ask is: is it
an urge for money or is it a political goal that drives the group forward? Here we
should also note that al Qaeda’s links to organized crime such as drug trade are
disputed (Benjamin & Simon 2002: 143–145).
Despite the increasingly lethal agenda of modern international terrorism,
genocide is nevertheless normally a far more brutal phenomenon.21 In genocide,
someone wants to deny a group its very existence, whereas terrorists do not
necessarily want an entire people wiped off the face of the earth. Terrorists tend to
have conditional political demands.
Does al Qaeda have intentions of committing genocide? Katz (1994:128)
argues: “The concept of genocide applies only when there is an actualized intent,
however successfully carried out, to physically destroy an entire group”. We do not
know for sure if al Qaeda would try to kill all Americans and Jews if the
organization’s political and territorial demands were met; however, Benjamin &
20
Benjamin & Simon (2002:135) argue: “A core tenet of al-Qaeda’s strategy is that radical Islamists must gain control of a
nation, from which they can then expand the area controlled by believers”. They go on to argue that the territories of major
importance in 1998 were the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq and the Middle East (Ibid:148).
21
The understanding of genocide in this thesis is that: “Genocide is sustained purposeful action by a perpetrator to
physically destroy a collectivity directly or indirectly, through interdiction of the biological and social reproduction of
group members, sustained regardless of the surrender or lack of threat offered by the victim” (Fein 1990:24).
26
Simon (2002:119) come close to arguing that it is genocide and not terrorism that al
Qaeda performs.22
Sabotage is directed at strategic infrastructure such as bridges, factories,
government buildings and communication installations. Sabotage is performed to
destroy objects, not to kill human beings.23 The main distinguishing feature between
sabotage and terrorism has to do with intentions. If one and the same explosion blows
up people as well as objects, the question is: was this done in order to kill the people
or to destroy the object? Both armies and saboteurs accidentally cause collateral
damage as an – at least in theory – unintended double effect. This is different from
terrorists who wilfully kill civilians and non-combatants in order to incite fear among
politicians and populations.
The ideal definition (type 3) of terrorism established in this section is thought
to be normative, and at the same time quite close to important definitions in the
literature. It seems clear that the world is still very far from agreeing on an
“international” consensus definition of terrorism. Too many states have too much at
stake to facilitate such a definition. Nations such as Russia, China, Saudi Arabia,
Israel and the USA each have their own agendas that will hinder their fruitful
cooperation in agreeing to any kind of firmly established definition of terrorism
(Heradstveit 2003:7–8). This is the reason why no “official” definitions of terrorism
are considered in this study. Such politicized definitions are inherently biased and are
typically designed to enforce a state’s agenda.
The al Qaeda organization – currently the frontrunner of international
terrorism – clearly engages in activities that resemble guerrilla warfare. It has also
issued statements regarding Jews that bring genocide to mind. The lack of a
consensus definition of terrorism has increased the validity of the following
statement: “Terrorism is violence committed by those we disapprove of” (Whitaker
2001).
22
Benjamin & Simon (2002) argue that al Qaeda distinguishes between Jews and Americans in this respect. Bin Laden has
advised Americans to elect different leaders to avoid attacks. With Israel and the Jews the story is different. “The enmity
between us and the Jews goes far back in time and is deep rooted” (Benjamin & Simon 2002:148).
23
A dictionary definition of Sabotage reads: “Intentional damage to machines, buildings etc.” (Longmans 1992:1160).
27
3.1.2 Mass Communication and its effects
Both terrorism and propaganda are phenomena with communicative dimensions,
especially when it comes to communicating with a mass audience. Thus, we need to
have an idea of what constitutes communication in general, and mass communication
and persuasive communication in particular. The communication situation for the
Bush administration is very special, and will be analysed more closely in section 4.5
with a focus on speech acts. Speech acts deal with the performative aspect of verbal
statements. For speech acts, “The issuing of the utterance is the performing of an
action” (Austin 2000:6).
Aristotle’s notion of communication and language has through the ages been
relentlessly and vigorously attacked from many quarters – without ever disappearing
from sight. Figure 3.1 shows an example of an Aristotelian model of communication:
Figure 3.1:
Speaker
Argument
Speech
Listeners
This model has some relevance, as propaganda is often depicted as a one-way
communication process. In this thesis McQuail’s approach to communication and
mass communication will be equally important. Referring to the work of George
Gerbner, he states that communication is social interaction through messages
(McQuail 1994:10). Such an approach is sufficiently broad for the needs of this
thesis, and includes non-verbal action and inaction as means of communication.
If we narrow down the scope from communication in general and instead
focus on mass communication in particular, we note that certain mechanisms are at
work. McQuail has argued that the following criteria are present in the mass
communication process: “large scale, one-directional flow, asymmetrical, impersonal
and anonymous, calculative relationship and standardized content” (McQuail
1994:38). Most of these criteria are fairly self-explanatory, so only a few additional
28
observations will be provided here.24 “The process is often calculative and
manipulative on the part of the sender” (McQuail 1994:37). This underlines the fact
that it is fruitful to relate mass communication to propaganda and rationality, and vice
versa. Propaganda is often associated with manipulations, and rationality with
calculations. The one-directional flow of mass communication is normally a feature
of propaganda as well.
Furthermore, the content of mass communication is thought to be fairly
standardized. This is because access to mass media, and opportunities for shaping its
content, are to a great extent granted only to an elite of professional communicators.
Journalists, politicians, media producers and advertisers tend to reproduce procedures
and follow certain codes of conduct when they construct mass communication.
Mass communication is often persuasive communication. McGuire’s
information-processing theory, first introduced in 1968, is a transparent idea of how
persuasive communication works. The theory consists of the following six steps:
1. The persuasive message must be communicated.
2. The receiver will attend to the message.
3. The receiver will comprehend the message.
4. The receiver yields to and is convinced by the arguments presented.
5. The newly adopted position is retained.
6. The desired behaviour takes place.
(from Severin & Tankard 2001:174).
Only one critical question will be raised here. In step 4, why is the word
“convinced” used instead of “persuaded”? Persuasive communication should have
persuasion as its goal. “Convinced” and “persuaded” are fairly close in meaning, but
there is a nuance here that is worthy of recognition. A dictionary definition of the
verb “to convince” is: “to make someone completely certain about something”
(Longmans 1992:280). If one is persuaded on the other hand, there may still be an
ounce of reluctance or doubt, but despite that one chooses to comply with the
suggestions of the persuader. This relates to the definition of rhetoric and persuasion
presented in the introduction.
24
It should be noted that the criterion of impersonal and anonymous do not apply to the Bush administration’s mass
communication. This is more frequently found in commercial mass communication such as overt and covert advertising.
29
Now, to the effects of mass communication. How does the public relate to
political mass communication such as news? One answer: “The public will accept
news if it is arranged in a comprehensible system” (Ellul 1973: 250). One reason why
mass communication tends to have standardized content is that this is a way for the
communicator to be certain that the message is comprehensible to the audience.
Schema theory examines the processes that lead up to an interpretation of
“new”– or ostensibly new – information, and how this new interpretation is affected
by old information in the mind of the individual. In Doris A. Graber’s Processing the
News (1993) the starting point is that “Americans are confronted by a seemingly
unmanageable flood tide of information” (Graber 1993:1). As a result “people pay
attention to only a small amount of the available information” (Graber 1993:2).
Schema theory suggests that the information overload forces the individual to
simplify and categorize new information on the basis of already existing knowledge
stored in ‘schemata’. “A schemata is a cognitive structure consisting of organized
knowledge about situations and individuals that has been abstracted from prior
experiences” (Graber 1993: 28).
When encountering new political information, the individual will begin a
process of decoding the message through comparison with pre-existing schemata,
until one is found that matches fairly well. Having found such a schemata the
individual transfers some of the knowledge of the already existing schemata to the
new information. As a result, little new is learned – even when the individual
encounters distinctly new scenarios and political information.
This tenet has at least two implications for political communicators,
propagandists and journalists.25 Firstly, they must try to present new political
information in a format and with a structure already somewhat familiar to the
audience. Secondly, it will be rational to simplify the political mass communication,
so as to make sure that the most important information gets through to the audience.
If the propagandist does not simplify the information then the individual will, and
25
In Framing Terrorism a similar understanding is applied as to how journalists produce reports on terrorism: “The way
that journalists observe and report each of these occurrences is shaped by how similar events have been covered in the past
and by the reporter’s most trusted sources of information” (Norris et al. 2003:4).
30
then there is no knowing what will be remembered and what will be forgotten by the
individual. Telling the full story may in fact confuse and distract the audience from
the most important parts of the argument or information.
3.1.3 Approaching rationality and rational choice
In the previous section, mass communication was defined as being calculative.
Calculations need a foundation in some sort of rationalistic thinking. Elster’s theory
of rationality has a multi-disciplinary strain and will serve as the baseline of rational
behaviour in this study. “Rational choice is instrumental: it is guided by the outcome
of action” (Elster 1989:22). In addition to this Midgaard’s definition of rationality
will be briefly commented upon.
Elster’s theory of rationality has instrumentality as its core. “It tells us what
we ought to do in order to achieve our aims as well as possible” (Elster 1986:1).
Elster introduces two theories of rationality: one ‘thin’ and one ‘thick’. A key term in
the thin theory is consistency (Hovi 1998:5). This implies that to have intransitive
preferences is irrational. If actor x prefers A > B and B > C, he must also prefer A >
C. Preferences must also be consistent in a time perspective. Preferences may change
somewhat over time, but the preferences of a rational actor cannot be constantly
changing.
The thick theory is simply an extension of the thin theory, with two additional
criteria: firstly, the actor’s preferences must be formed with some degree of
autonomy. Extreme conformism, or instinctual contradiction, on the basis of another
actor’s preferences or actions, is not compatible with rationality. Secondly, beliefs
must be well grounded. A rational actor takes into consideration available facts and
common-knowledge truths in order to achieve a reflected perception of reality and
the actual decision-making situation. “Rational choice is concerned with finding the
best means to given ends. It is a way of adapting optimally to the circumstances”
(Elster 1989:24).
31
Midgaard emphasises the importance of ability, and willingness, to
communicate and reach well-founded conceptions and decisions (Hovi 1998:5). This
communicative aspect is partly ignored in Elster’s thin theory. It is especially
important to be aware of this aspect of rationality when the topic is communication
such as propaganda. With this approach, rationality is in many ways a cornerstone of
communication. Likewise it is important to understand the relationship between fear
and rationality. “Fear can make people do other things that they would not do if they
were thinking rationally” (Rampton & Stauber 2003:136).
3.1.4 Normative, semantic and psychological aspects
If propaganda is to be a useful concept, it first has to be divested of its pejorative
connotations.” (Cull et al. 2003:xv)
Propaganda, in the ordinary use of the term, is both elusive and delusive.
When anyone mentions the word “propaganda”, this typically triggers a negative
reaction. Images of Josef Goebbels shouting: “WOLLT IHR DEN TOTALEN
KRIEG?” is a common association.26 Propaganda has a problematic legacy and has
become a taboo activity for decision-makers. Lasswell wrote: “Propaganda attains
eminence as the one means of mass mobilization that is cheaper than violence,
bribery or other possible control techniques” (Lasswell 1995:17).
Yet, propaganda is very common. It may manifest itself through all available
channels – including music, cartoons, stamps and art.27 Propaganda is an essential
element in warfare, going back to ancient times. Naturally, the phenomenon existed
before the word propaganda was created in 1622.28 It was, for instance, used by Pope
Urban II when he held an inflammatory speech to recruit people for the First Crusade
in 1095. He incited fear and made references to alleged atrocities of Muslims who
raped Christian women and defiled Christian altars. (Jowett & O’Donnell 1999:63)
26
Some have argued that it was the circumstances, and not the “genius” of Josef Goebbels himself, that resulted in
Goebbels occupying a special spot in the “propagandists’ hall of fame.” See Adorno (1991:147).
27
It may even be argued that before art received a status as autonomous, all art was a reinforcement of some sort of
ideology, and thus somewhat propagandistic. However, with the emergence of the modernist conception of art “The work
of art becomes its own material and forms the technique of reproduction and presentation” (Adorno 1991:64).
28
In Propaganda and Mass Persuasion. A Historical Encyclopaedia (2003), Cull et al. trace the history of propaganda.
Jowett & O’Donnell (1999:47–96) also provide many interesting examples of propaganda through the ages.
32
The Bush administration has declared war on terrorism. Consequently, it is not
controversial to claim that its members are engaging in propaganda to win that war.
Indeed, it would be very surprising if they did not. When you have decided that you
are willing to shoot and kill your enemy, there is no logic in claiming: “But I would
never lie to him, deceive him or use propaganda to defeat him.” Deception and lies
are the most stereotypical forms of propaganda, but there is more to propaganda than
that. Propaganda often relies on information that can be technically true. “The
tendency is that lies and falsifications are used less frequently” (Ellul 1973:239).
It is better to think of propaganda as a quite common communication strategy
than to fall victim to its negative connotations. As Daniel Lerner has pointed out:
“Propagandists do not decide to tell the truth because they personally are honest, any
more than they decide to tell lies because they are dishonest” (From Taylor
1997:158).
This must not lead to the understanding that propaganda cannot be detestable
and work for utterly malicious ends. But we should realize that propaganda can also
be applied in a more acceptable way, and for ends that are almost universally good.
Taylor (1997:195) argues that preventing children from walking into minefields is
one example. Another interesting example is the “Duck and Cover” campaign from
the beginning of the Cold War.29
Cognitive Dissonance and propaganda are important concepts to juxtapose.
Abby Sandor (2001:139) has pointed out that the purpose of propaganda can be to
eliminate cognitive dissonance in the minds of the audience. In this she is drawing
upon the seminal work of social psychologist Leon Festinger, A theory of cognitive
dissonance (1957), in which he argues that “dissonance can result from a mismatch
between a person’s own actions and their beliefs” (quoted in Sandor 2001:128).
29
That campaign was targeted at school children, who were taught to duck and cover in the event of a nuclear attack. To
save the lives of as many children as possible during a nuclear attack is almost a universal good. And yet, the film was
propagandistic. It likened nuclear attack to the dangers of car accidents, sunburn and house-fires. It downplayed the hazards
of nuclear attack and gave an over-optimistic impression of how effective the strategy “to duck and cover” would be in the
event of a nuclear blast.
33
Festinger’s classic theory of cognitive dissonance consists of three cardinal tenets:
1. There may exist dissonant or ‘non-fitting’ relations among cognitive elements.
2. The existence of dissonance gives rise to pressures to reduce the dissonance and to
avoid increase in dissonance.
3. Manifestations of the operation of these pressures include behavior changes, changes
of cognition and circumspect exposure to new information and new opinions.
(Festinger 1957:31)
Festinger defines cognitions as “the things a person knows about himself, about
his behavior, and about his surroundings” (Festinger 1957:9). Dissonance is the
existence of disharmonious relations between pairs of elements. Synonyms for
dissonance are imbalance and incongruity.
Importantly, the individual’s mind will subconsciously invoke mechanisms to
reduce or eliminate cognitive dissonance. Of the several ways to eliminate cognitive
dissonance, only a few will be considered here. Firstly, there is selective exposure.
Individuals can seek out consonant information and avoid – or ignore – dissonant
information. A variant of this is to engage in wishful thinking, and add new cognitive
elements that are consonant to existing beliefs. Secondly, the individual may quite
simply alter his or her behaviour. If you perform actions that you at heart disapprove
of, why not stop doing such deeds? Human nature is peculiar and this intuitively
highly logical option is often not the outcome.
Once an individual is inside the frame of thought of dogmatic propaganda, to
break out of it is very demanding. As Ellul (1973:18) notes, “such breaks are too
painful”. They might either move the individual into a state of cognitive dissonance
or lead to a traumatic confrontation with that person’s own recent past. It is often true
that: “He who acts in obedience to propaganda can never go back” (Ellul 1973:29).
Propaganda can entice the individual into performing actions he or she would
denounce under normal circumstances, and the individual may often find dubious ad
hoc reasons for maintaining the behavioural pattern through mechanisms to eliminate
cognitive dissonance. By for instance exploiting mechanisms of group psychology, or
short-circuiting rational processes or discussion, “The propagandist can mobilize man
for action that is not in accord with his previous convictions.” (Ellul 1973: 28).
34
3.2 Propaganda defined
Propaganda is a much maligned and often misunderstood word. The layman uses it
to mean something inferior or even despicable. The word propaganda always has a
bitter after taste. Josef Goebbels (quoted in Cull et al. 2003:xv).
The term propaganda originates from a papal attempt to contain the spread of
Protestantism and to propagate the Roman Catholic faith: the Sacra Congregatio de
Propaganda Fide, established by Pope Gregory XV in 1622. The word is derived
from the Latin verb “propagare”, which means to spread and propagate. Most
dictionary definitions label propaganda as a derogatory term.30 The fact that
“propaganda” is a disputed and controversial term makes it even more important to
work with it, and strive to establish more consensus about its content and core.
Theory that aims to separate propaganda from other forms of communication tends to
focus on either of these three criteria: content, technique or asymmetry of interests.
Firstly, those who suggest that the nature of the content of communication
defines propaganda focus on questions of information/disinformation and objective
truth, half-truths or deliberate lies. Such content-based definitions rest on a presupposition that there exists an objective truth regarding most phenomena. One
should not disclaim the notion of an objective reality, but it is a difficult concept to
work with. “In our time ‘meaning’ and ‘truth’ join 'reality' as problematic and relative
terms” (Gardner 1980:806).
Secondly, definitions that focus on technique typically state that propaganda
has more to do with how things are communicated than with the substantial content
of what is communicated. Propaganda should be understood as a means, and can be
applied towards ends that may be immoral or moral: thus, both a venerable religious
leader and a Nazi agitator can apply propagandistic techniques. “Propaganda as a
mere tool is no more moral or immoral than a pump handle” (Lasswell 1995:21).
30
This is also the case in Longman’s Dictionary of English Language and Culture, which is the source of all dictionary
definitions throughout this study. It is stated that propaganda is “usually derogative” (Longmans 1992:1054).
35
Thirdly, there is the criterion of asymmetry of interest between persuader and
persuadee. It is sometimes claimed that we are dealing with propaganda if the desired
ends of the persuader: “will be advantageous to the persuader but not in the best
interest of the persuadee” (Brown 1958:300). However, this approach is quite
problematic, as it may be difficult to determine what will be in the best interest of the
persuadee. In conclusion: this study prefers to see propaganda as a technique.
3.2.1 Jowett & O’Donnell: Deliberate and systematic
Definition V:
Propaganda is the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions,
manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers
the desired intent of the propagandist. (Jowett & O’Donnell 1999:6)
Jowett and O’ Donnell’s definition has elements of what Naess labels a
normative definition (type 2). It is a useful analytical tool, and consequently a
literature based on their framework has emerged. The wording of the definition is
precise, and it is largely neutral as regards questions of morality and content.
The first two terms of the definition represent important criteria in defining
propaganda. It is often taken implicitly, but should be stated explicitly, that
propaganda is systematic and deliberate. The deliberate aspect points towards the
importance of acknowledging propagandists as instrumental and intentional actors.
The question facing the propagandist is typically: How can we make “them” do what
“we” want? There is instrumentality in choosing a specific propaganda technique.
Furthermore, Jowett & O’Donnell encapsulate much of propaganda activities
when they use the wording: “shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions”. These
processes form the core of Jowett & O’Donnell’s definition. “Shaping perceptions”
refers to a milder, form of propaganda, whereas “manipulating cognitions” may have
more negative connotations. A common feature of propaganda is to manipulate on the
idea that the speaker is veracious, and will bring up only those themes that are of
relevance (Andersson & Furberg 1973). The key is to disseminate certain cognitions
and perceptions to produce behaviour desirable to the propagandist.
36
The desired behaviour the propaganda works towards can be inaction,
implicitly supporting and maintaining the status quo. It is important to note that
Jowett & O’Donnell do not exclude the possibility that the desired behaviour may
also be beneficial for the propagandee. Asymmetry of interests between propagandist
and propagandee is very common, but it is not a definitional criterion.
The minor problems of Jowett & O’Donnell’s definition stem largely from
what is not included, rather than from what is included. It could be argued that the
definition is perhaps too wide and should include additional criteria to decrease the
amount of communication found in the propaganda universe. Jowett & O’Donnell’s
definition will be the starting point of the synthesis of propaganda definitions
introduced in section 3.2.4. One definition that can mend some of the shortcomings
of Jowett & O’Donnell’s definition is the one provided by Jacques Ellul.
3.2.2 Jaques Ellul: Total propaganda leading to action
Ellul’s Propaganda, first published in 1965, is essential reading for anyone studying
the history and theory of propaganda. The book is multidisciplinary but rests mainly
on knowledge and theory from psychology and sociology (Ellul 1973:4). Ellul works
with propaganda in a way similar to Naess’ descriptive definitions. He examines the
usage of the term propaganda and how propaganda manifests itself in society.
Ellul is initially reluctant to hammer out a precise definition of propaganda,
but does indicate: “In propaganda we find techniques of psychological influence
combined with techniques of organization and the envelopment of people with the
intention of sparking action” (Ellul 1973:xiii). Then, as the book progresses, a more
precise definition emerges:
Definition VI:
Propaganda is a set of methods employed by an organized group that wants to
bring about the active or passive participation in its actions of a mass of
individuals, psychologically unified through psychological manipulations and
incorporated in an organization (Ellul 1973:61).
37
The notion of propaganda as a mass phenomenon is conspicuous in Ellul’s
definition. According to Ellul, propaganda is initiated by an organized group and is
directed at a mass of individuals. The aim of propaganda is to agitate and inspire
people into action and incorporate them in an organization. Propaganda is meant to
influence individuals while addressing the group as a whole (Ellul 1973:7).
Ellul emphasizes that total propaganda must be exercised. All available
media must be applied to reach the full scale of individuals in the target group. He
goes on to argue that propaganda furnishes the individual with a complete system for
explaining the world (Ellul 1973:11), and stresses the importance of centralized
control over the media for propaganda to be effective (1973:102). This last
assumption is now obsolete, pluralistic societies have an abundance or propaganda.
Ellul is placed within the branch of propaganda theory that focuses on
technique. The word “method” is used in the definition, and “technique” occurs twice
in his preliminary definition in the preface. His strong emphasis on total propaganda
indicates that propaganda must be extensive and comprehensive in order to be truly
successful. This criterion concerns the content of propaganda. However, it does not
concern the qualitative features of the content as much as it concerns the quantitative
features. It does not say much about veracity and accuracy of information.
“Only action is of concern to modern propaganda” (Ellul 1973: 25). A belief
must be incorporated, before action may occur. To incorporate the individual into the
propaganda organization, the propagandist must first provide a specific, clear, simple
task to be undertaken. (Ellul 1973: 209) This is to entice the individual into the
propaganda’s frame of thought. Once that Rubicon, is crossed the complexity of
tasks, and frequency of involvement, for the individual will increase.
Ellul’s heavy reliance on action, as opposed to beliefs, is somewhat
inconsistent with the use of the phrase “passive participation” in his definition.
Inaction is also a form of action, denoting a more or less conscious and deliberate
choice not to take action. By stating that only action is of concern to modern
propaganda, Ellul underestimates the passive and sedating effect that propaganda
sometimes has. Shaping perceptions may be an effective way for the state to prevent
undesirable actions like riots, demonstrations and, even worse, coups to topple the
38
propaganda organization. This kind of propaganda campaign will often operate
purely on a psychological level, as an attempt at preserving the status quo.
To conclude on Ellul’s definition of propaganda, it is clear that he emphasizes
the technique aspect of propaganda. Other definitional criteria deal with the necessity
of action and a notion of propaganda as a mass phenomenon. According to Ellul,
propaganda always derives from an organized group and must be extensive and
comprehensive.
Finally, there are two more ideas Ellul presents that are very interesting. One is
the idea of propaganda as the substitute for a leader. “It means that in a group without
a leader, but subjected to propaganda, the sociological and psychological effects are
the same as if there were a leader” (Ellul 1973:211). The other is that propaganda
often leads to “psychological crystallization” (1973:162). The beliefs and preferences
the propagandee has adopted from the propaganda may be extremely hard to change.
These ideas would indeed be worthy of a more thorough analysis in further study.
3.2.3 The legacy of propaganda analysis
The first serious attempt to systematically single out propaganda and analyse it was
undertaken shortly after the First World War by Harold Laswell. His propaganda
definition reads: “Propaganda in the broadest sense is the technique of influencing
human action by the manipulation of representations” (Lasswell 1995:13). Lasswell’s
definition relies heavily on the technique aspect of propaganda and includes words
like “action”, “manipulation” and “influencing”. He describes propaganda as a tool
and a control technique. By defining propaganda in the broadest sense he fails to
separate propaganda from other phenomena like for instance advertising.
Even though Jowett & O’Donnell (1999:97) consider advertising to be a
separate form of propaganda, a different stance is taken in this thesis. Despite some
similarities between the everyday uses of the two terms, it would seem prudent to
keep them apart.31 Both advertising and propaganda are forms of mass
31
Even though the goals are different, it is interesting to compare the techniques and devices of propaganda and
advertising. See Cialdini (2001) for a list of devices that are used to manufacture compliance in advertising.
39
communication, but unlike propaganda, advertising has economic ends (Ellul:
1973:62). The goal that advertising leads towards is some sort of purchase. Political
propaganda, as defined in this thesis, never has consumer-like purchase as its ultimate
goal. One should not underestimate propaganda’s inherent capacity to engage beyond
trivial consumerism: it is about life and death (Taithe & Thornton 1999:15).
According to Leonard Doob, there is one variable that distinguishes
propaganda from education in a society: scientific value.
Table 3.1:
Unscientific content
Scientific content
(Propaganda is) ...”the attempt to
affect the personalities and to control
the behavior of individuals towards
ends considered unscientific or of
doubtful value in a society at a
particular time.” (Doob 1948:240)
single Persuasion (Doob 1948:253)
A Mass
audience
A
individual
“...by defining education as the
imparting of knowledge or
skill considered to be scientific
or to have survival value in
a society at a particular time.”
(Doob 1948:237)
Persuasion (Doob 1948:253)
The typology shown in table 3.1 illustrates the essential criteria Doob applies
to distinguish propaganda from other forms of persuasive communication. Doob
primarily deals with content as the defining aspect of propaganda. For him, the
important question is information is considered in a society at a given time. One
consequence of Doob’s argument would be that the findings of Galileo Galilee were
in fact propaganda until the rest of society agreed that they were of scientific value.
Then his thoughts regarding the shape of the earth were promoted into the education
category.32
32
This somewhat awkward argument illustrates that the problem of relativism applies to Doob’s defintion of propaganda.
40
A very interesting feature of Doob’s typology deals with the nature of the
audience. Doob introduces a criterion of a communication relation of “one-tomany”. His typology suggests that one is not dealing with propaganda if the
communication is directed at only one individual.33 This tenet is supported in this
study also; personal communication should not be defined as propaganda. We expect
friends, acquaintances and people we talk to face-to-face to influence us and shape
our perceptions and cognitions. We “allow” them into our heads, and if they abuse
this courtesy by manipulating us for their own benefit, we will probably terminate
that social relation. By contrast, we can shut out, but not switch off propaganda.
A final descriptive point to be aware of is articulated by Taithe & Thornton,
who argue that propaganda is often used as a tool of exclusion and inclusion (Taithe
& Thornton 1999:4). Propaganda is frequently used to underscore the line between us
and them. It often fuels – or creates– antagonism. Ellul also touches upon this aspect
when he notes: “all propaganda has to set off its group from all the other groups”
(Ellul 1973:212).
3.2.4 Synthesis
Practically everything included in Jowett & O’Donnell’s definition of propaganda
(Definition
V) belongs in a fruitful definition of propaganda. The shortcomings of
Jowett & O’Donnell s definition are related to what it does not include. It is a good
normative definition, but would benefit from addressing the descriptive aspects
necessary for an ideal definition. Jowett & O’Donnell have not taken Ellul’s
contributions (Definition VI) sufficiently into account.
Including Ellul’s notion of propaganda as a mass phenomenon and the
necessity of a propaganda organization would be a constructive supplement to
Jowett & O’Donnell’s definition.34 Jowett & O’Donnell also recognize that the
organizational aspect is important: “The source of propaganda is likely to be an
33
This is a disputed issue within propaganda studies. Johnson-Cartee & Copeland (2004:6) claim that “both persuasion and
propaganda may be either one-to-one or one-to-many, that is, personal or mass communication.” George (1959:19) holds a
contrary position, and stresses the impersonal one-way flow of propaganda through the mass media.
34
The concept of the mass has been defined in communication studies as a passive object of manipulation. “It [the mass]
did not act for itself but was, rather, acted upon” (Mc Quail 1994:38).
41
institution or organization” (1999:283). But they fall short of including such a
requirement in their definition. Ellul, on the other hand, considers propaganda to be
mass communication conveyed by a propaganda organization. It should be kept in
mind that in section 3.1.2 above we defined mass communication as “one-directional
and asymmetrical”. Ideally, rhetoric and persuasion should not be entirely onedirectional.35
Organizations tend to have more resources at their disposal than do
individuals. Consequently, the likelihood that the persuasive effort will not reach
large audiences is higher when an organization is not involved. Even if an
organization has only one “member”, it still represents a significant change when an
individual represents an organization. The notion of an organization suggests unity,
strength in numbers and may add an impersonal strain to the communication. People
may relate differently to information according to whether they perceive it as coming
from an organization or from an individual.
For the remainder of this study, propaganda will be considered to stem from
organizations. It is also time to merge the normative and descriptive elements of
Jowett & O’Donnell’s and Ellul’s definitions into an ideal definition that will be used
for the remainder of the study:
Definition: I
Propaganda is systematic strategic one-way mass communication conveyed by an
organization to shape perceptions or manipulate the cognitions of a specific
audience. Its ultimate goal is to direct the audience’s behaviour to achieve a
response that furthers the political objectives of the propaganda organization.
Definition I is basically an attempt at adding an ounce of Ellul to Jowett &
O’Donnell’s definition of propaganda, drawing mostly on the latter, but includes the
organizational aspect emphasized by Ellul. It is also relevant to state explicitly that
propaganda has a specified audience. It is perhaps too vague to label propaganda as
an attempt, as do Jowett & O’Donnell. It may be more fruitful to refer to it as a
35
This holds true for definitions of rhetoric and persuasion as defined in section 1.1. The inextricable links between
rhetoric, propaganda and persuasion will be further explored in section 3.3.4 below.
42
specific form of mass communication, and not merely an attempt. This does not
imply that propaganda must necessarily achieve its goals: also unsuccessful
propaganda campaigns are propaganda.
It may also be useful to separate the technique itself from its goals. However,
without such goals as indicated in the definition, one cannot categorize mass
communication as propaganda. The word “strategic” has therefore been included, to
indicate that there is intentionality and instrumentality at work as the propagandist
pursues his or her goals.
3.3 Propaganda: comparative aspect
Words frequently used as synonyms for propaganda are lies, distortion, deceit,
manipulation, mind control, psychological warfare, brainwashing and palaver
(Jowett & O’Donnell 1999:3).
Comparing propaganda to other terms may increase our understanding of it. In this
section antonyms and synonyms for propaganda will be discussed. We begin with a
common typology of propaganda – white, grey and black. Then propaganda will be
related to words like information, education, religion, and the concepts of psyops and
public diplomacy.
Advertising will not be dealt with here. In section 3.2.3 the conclusion was
that advertising should be excluded from the propaganda concept. Neither will
censorship be discussed. Censorship is a mechanism that may convert ordinary
communication into propaganda. Censorship is one of the dark facets of propaganda,
and they “remain two sides of the same coin, both involving the manipulation of
opinion.” (Cull et al. 2003:70).36
In this section (3.3) descriptive definitions (type I) will be applied more than
elsewhere in this thesis. Juxtaposing propaganda to other terms requires quite a few
definitions. When one tries to map the usage of a word, it may be appropriate to turn
to descriptive definitions, like those provided by standard dictionaries.
36
See Gervin (2004) for an analysis focusing more on the relationship between censorship and propaganda.
43
3.3.1 Typology of propaganda: White, grey, and black
As propaganda is a multifaceted phenomenon, it may be useful to divide it further
into subcategories based on the nature of its content. Jowett & O’Donnell (1999:12)
describe propaganda as “white, grey or black, in relationship to an acknowledgment
of its source and its accuracy of information.” These two variables for making a
typology have been in use for quite some time; also Ellul (1973:15) discusses them,
with an emphasis on covert and overt propaganda.37
White propaganda comes from a source that is identified correctly, and the
information in the message tends to be accurate. Nevertheless, white propaganda
messages are characterized by biased “reasoning”, and are often aimed at improving
the credibility of the source. Such credibility can be used at a later stage when
influencing and manipulating may be more important than when the white
propaganda message was conveyed. It is white propaganda that overlaps the most
with related terms such as rhetoric, public diplomacy, information and persuasion.
Black propaganda applies stealth, and it is credited to a false source. It
spreads lies, fabrications and deceptions. Black propagandists have little concern for
sticking to the truth, and deception is actively sought.38 Black propaganda has a
considerable fall-height. It is more humiliating to be caught red-handed disseminating
it than milder forms of propaganda. Moreover, black propagandists will not hesitate
to apply any kind of persuasion techniques. Bjørgo & Heradstveit (1996:12) have
labelled propaganda as “persuasion by all means”, and this description seems
particularly apt for black propaganda.
Grey propaganda is placed in the middle of an imagined continuum between
black and white propaganda. The correctness of the information and the identity of
the source may be known or unknown. Logically, propaganda will never be “black”
if its original source can be determined at the time of dissemination; thus, no matter
how manipulative or deceptive a statement is, it will still be classified as grey if the
37
Some interpret the black/white/grey classification to be mostly about the sender. A different position will be argued here
where the two variables of sender and accuracy of information are thought to be of equal importance.
38
Jowett & O’Donnell’s position on this has been challenged from some quarters. “Black propaganda must not be confused
with deception” (Taylor 1997:162). Jowett & O’Donnell’s position is subscribed to in this thesis.
44
source is correctly identified. Similarly, the message may be veracious and accurate,
but nevertheless grey, because the source is unknown. In this thesis, very little black
propaganda is analysed since the source is always known to be the Bush
administration.39
Distinguishing propaganda into three sub-categories may be useful for
analytical purposes. However, doing so will often imply that one considers black
propaganda to be most condemnable, and white propaganda least condemnable. Is
this necessarily always the case? The results of a propaganda campaign will not
depend solely upon which of the three sub-categories the propaganda belongs to.
Also a white propaganda campaign may have undesired and perhaps unpredicted
negative results. However, black propaganda will always be less veracious than white
propaganda, and will be designed to manipulate or frame the audience.
3.3.2 Religion, information, education and propaganda
The etymological heritage of propaganda is of a religious nature, and consequently
separating political and religious propaganda is not unproblematic. The techniques
of political and religious indoctrination are very similar and overlap one another
(Sargant 1997:152). The relationship between religion and propaganda is one of
extreme complexity, partly due to the untidy divide between religion and politics.
Most religious doctrines have political implications. Religious propaganda often has
religious conversion as its goal. Conversion is normally: “A change in which a person
accepts a new religion, belief, etc., completely” (Longmans 1992:279).
Educative processes resemble propagandistic processes to some extent. Ellul
(1973:xiii) considers propaganda to be “semi-educative” or “re-education”.
Propaganda can be used to break down or disable prior learning. One might argue
that the propagandist performs a deliberate miseducation. Some white propaganda
may overlap with what is normally defined as education, – i.e. “the process by which
39
This does, however, not prove that no black propaganda has occurred in the war on terrorism. It is likely that certain
psyops executed by the military have been of the black propaganda kind (see section 4.5).
45
a person’s mind and character are developed through teaching” (Longmans
1992:407).
One difference between education and propaganda lies in the following
statement: “Education teaches us how to think in order to enable us to make up our
own minds, propaganda dictates what one should think” (Cull et al. 2003:xix). When
one dictates what others should think – and consequently also how others should
behave – there is little genuine education involved. It is more about obedience.
Another interesting pair of words is information and disinformation. Ellul
(1973:112) claims that it is impossible to distinguish clearly between propaganda and
information. Jowett and O’Donnell (1999:18), however, point to the close links
between disinformation and propaganda.
“Heavily biased selective information” will often be a fitting description of the
content of propaganda. Deliberate disinformation is the propaganda that is easiest to
categorize as such. For the remainder of this thesis, political propaganda is what
will be studied. Excluding religious propaganda from a propaganda definition cannot
be done lightly since, as noted, the very roots of the modern word have a religious
origin. However, without implying that it is a definitional criterion, this thesis will
subscribe to the view set forth by Nicholas Cull:
Propaganda – I am here deliberately excluding purely religious or commercial
propaganda in the form of advertising – is a distinct political activity that can be
distinguished from cognate activities like information and education (Cull et al.
2003:xix).
3.3.3 Public diplomacy, psychological operations and spin
Psychological Operations (psyops) and Public Diplomacy (PD) can often be
euphemisms for propaganda. Most people have aversions to being branded as
“propagandists”. The credibility of the speaker and the audience’s attitude towards
the message are also influenced negatively if the message is categorized as
propaganda. Consequently, more desirable labels are constructed by those who in fact
produce propaganda. Of the three, PD and spin are not only propaganda since there
are elements to them that are not propagandistic.
46
Psyops, on the other hand, are by definition propagandistic. Comparing the
NATO definition of psyops with Jowett & O’Donnell’s definition of propaganda
(definition V) makes this easy to see:
Definition VII:
Psyops are planned operations to convey selected information and indicators to
foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning and
ultimately the behavior of foreign governments, organisations, groups and
individuals (Taylor 1997:150).
It is obvious that psyops involve directing behaviour by influencing and
manipulating the psychology of the audience – almost a mirror image of Jowett &
O’Donnell’s definition of propaganda. Psyops can be categorized into white, grey
and black operations. In the terminology of the US Department of Defense, psyops
are incorporated in what is referred to as “Information Operations”.40 Figure 3.2
illustrates how the Department of Defense relates these concepts to one another:
Figure 3.2:
Information Operations (IO)
Computer Network Operations (CNO)
Perception Management
Media War
Psyops.
Psyops belong to the military sphere and are conducted primarily – if not solely
– by military personnel or units. Spin on the other hand is very common in civil
society, especially in politics. Jowett & O’Donnell (1999:3) define spin as follows:
40
In the US military’s "Joint Doctrine for Information Operations” of 1998 Information operations are defined as: “actions
taken to affect adversary information and information systems while defending one’s own information and information
systems.” Available from: http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/new_pubs/jp3_13.pdf
47
Definition VIII:
Spin is a coordinated strategy to minimize negative information and present in a
favourable light a story that is damaging.
This is a quite fruitful and specific definition. Spin involves manipulation of
political information and is frequently applied by political figures and parties in a
domestic setting. Spin has to do with “selling” politics. It operates in the grey zone
between rhetoric and propaganda, and is widely accepted as a tool that all “imagebuilders” must apply.
Public diplomacy is harder to define, although governments openly
acknowledge their engagement in this activity. Broadly speaking, it is “the task of
communicating with overseas publics” (Leonard 2002:48). Leonard, who has done
extensive research on PD, argues: “Public diplomacy is not simply delivering a
message to an audience; it is about getting a result.” (Leonard 2002:52) This suggests
that PD, much like propaganda, is instrumental and strategic, and that the
communication works systematically towards a specified goal.
The label PD is normally thought to have evolved in the circles around the
public diplomacy center of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, established in
1965. Manheim (1994:3–4) distinguishes PD from other forms of diplomacy. PD
concerns government-to-people contacts, and these are different from the more
traditional government-to-government, diplomat-to-diplomat and people-to-people
contacts. Manheim has a quite fruitful definition of PD:
Definition IX:
Public Diplomacy is a government’s process of communicating with foreign
publics in an attempt to bring about understanding for its nation’s ideas and
ideals, its institutions and culture, as well as its national goals and current
policies (Manheim 1994:5)
48
Most PD can be labelled as white propaganda. But there are elements that
distinguish it from propaganda. The most striking example is the call for “developing
lasting relationships with key individuals through scholarships, exchanges, training,
seminars, conferences, and access to media channels.” (Leonard 2002:51).
The
Fulbright exchange programme is a good example of such an activity.
PD is not identical to propaganda – mainly because lasting sustained influence
can be the goal of PD. It is fair to acknowledge that such close ties between opinion
leaders and government officials can cut both ways. Propaganda has been defined as
applied to direct behaviour, so when there is real doubt as to who is directing whose
behaviour we are not dealing with propaganda as defined here. It should be noted that
PD sometimes truly works towards fostering shared views and common
understanding.
The communication situation of PD often differs from that of propaganda.
Propaganda is here understood as one-way, push-down mass communication
(Peterson 2002:81). Whereas propaganda never encourages discussion, “Public
Diplomacy is not a one-way street” (Cull et al. 2003:327). One interesting way to
think of PD is to relate it to Joseph Nye’s idea of soft power.41 If states can achieve
their goals through public diplomacy rather than coercion, this will be an instance of
exercising soft power.
What the Bush administration itself calls its “public diplomacy strategy” will
fall within the boundaries of this study.42 Whereas, the psyops of the war in
Afghanistan and the war in Iraq will not be analysed here.43 It is the “media war” that
is the focus of this study. Sometimes these two aspects of perception management
blend together, but normally it is possible to separate them. Figure 3.3 illustrates the
relationship between public diplomacy and various forms of propaganda:
41
“Soft Power is the ability to achieve desired outcomes in international affairs through attraction rather than coercion”
(Nye 1996: 21). The idea was first introduced in Bound to lead (Nye 1990).
42
The USA reorganized its PD activities after USIA was shut down in 1999. During the war on terrorism Charlotte Beers
was named Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, an appointment that many considered to be a fiasco
(Fonn & Romarheim 2004; Nelles 2004). Following that, post was held by Margaret Tutwiler, who left it in June 2004,
after less than a year in the job. The post remained vacant for nine months, until Bush confidante Karen Hughes was
appointed in the Spring of 2005.
43
For more examples of this aspect of the propaganda efforts of the war on terrorism, see the homepage of the United
States Central Command http://www.centcom.mil/galleries/leaflets/showleaflets.asp.
49
Figure 3.3:44
White propaganda
Public Diplomacy
Grey propaganda
Black propaganda
This figure illustrates that PD and propaganda overlaps. Secondly, that there
are elements to PD that is not propaganda. Thirdly, that almost all of the PD that can
also be defined as “propaganda”, belongs in the category white propaganda, and
never in the category of black propaganda.
3.3.4 Propaganda: exploiting conventions of rhetoric
The honest rhetorician has no separate name to distinguish him from the dishonest
(Aristotle 1941:1318) 45
In order to work with terms, it is not always necessary to determine the shady border
and overlap between rhetoric and propaganda with precision. As Dr. Johnson once
said: “The fact that day shades into night via twilight does not mean that we cannot
distinguish between day and night” (quoted in Brown 2004:53). The existence of
grey zones and overlaps should not keep us from trying to define what can be
defined. In this thesis, rhetoric has been defined as follows:
44
The author introduced an earlier version of this figure in Fonn & Romarheim (2004:371).
These are not the exact words of Aristotle, but appear to be the rewriting of an argument Aristotle makes concerning the
‘sophists’ at the very end of the first chapter of Rhetorica. The exact phrasing of this quote probably belongs to the
translator W. Rhys Roberts.
45
50
Definition II
Rhetoric is the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of
persuasion, persuasion being potentially – and ideally – the outcome of an
interactive communicative process.
Rhetoric has a deliberative aspect to it, and a common understanding of a
phenomenon is often sought. In a real discussion, all participants must be willing to
adjust their line of action if convincing counterarguments to their initial position are
presented. In this respect, persuasion and propaganda differ, since the propagandist
has a goal of directing behaviour irrespective of counterarguments. Moreover: “both
persuader and persuadee stand to have their needs fulfilled, persuasion is regarded as
more mutually satisfying than propaganda” (Jowett & O’Donnell 1999:28).46
Andersson & Furberg (1973) portray the propagandist as someone who is
parasitic on the principles of “sincere speech”.47 The principles of sincere speech are
veracity and relevance (Andersson & Furberg 1973:33). We expect communicators
of political information to live up to certain levels of veracity and truthfulness. We
also expect political communicators to keep to the issue, even though one might be
aware of the phenomenon of spin. Irrelevant information should not be put forward.
The propagandist always has his own agenda, which he will often pursue by being a
parasite on rhetoricians.
Rhetoric should be defined so that it excludes dogmatism. Dogmatism is about
“holding one’s beliefs very strongly and expecting other people to accept them
without question” (Longmans 1992:375). A constituting condition for listening to
another person’s arguments is that the person will listen to and give real consideration
to any counterarguments or alternative perspectives one might present. If this
condition – or implicit agreement – is not kept, then there will be no real debate. If
this condition is not met, rhetoric – or any form of communication – is meaningless.
The notion of communicative rationality and the idea that speakers will yield to the
force of better arguments relates to this aspect of rhetoric (Habermas 1984:25).
46
The same view is presented in Strategic Political Communication: “Persuasion is most often depicted as benefiting both
the persuader and the recipient” (Johnson-Cartee & Copeland 2004: 6).
47
Habermas (1984:25) has also published much on what constitutes an ideal speech situation, as have Midgaard et al
(1973:100).
51
In contemporary society, the term “rhetoric” has some negative connotations.
As noted by Taithe and Thorton (1993:3), many people have lost sight of “the real
purpose of rhetoric, which is to convince and persuade, in effect to end disputes and
iron out dissent through reasoned argument”. Propaganda, on the other hand,
typically seeks to eliminate dissent without discussion. Propaganda “does not tolerate
discussion; by its very nature, it excludes contradiction and discussion” (Ellul
1973:11).
An important distinction between the rhetorician and the propagandist is that
the propagandist does not need to espouse the views or perceptions he disseminates to
the audience: indeed, he may be fully aware that they are false. “He must, of course,
believe in the cause he serves, but not in his particular argument” (Ellul 1973:24).
What is of real importance to the propagandist is that it will be in his interest if the
perception in question is present in the propagandee’s mind, and such a perception
will yield a behaviour that will work towards the goal of the propagandist.
3.4 Propaganda devices
The list of 12 propaganda devices presented in this section is not meant to be
exhaustive: it is foremost a working tool for this specific analysis, and thus does not
limit the conceivable propaganda device universe. Other studies have used more
extensive lists. Johnson-Cartee & Copeland’s (2004:164–171) list of “propaganda
techniques in the year 2002” counts some 33 devices all in all. This study will also
consider some marketing and linguistic literature for input to the list of propaganda
devices.
The first list of propaganda devices was systematized by the Institute for
Propaganda Analysis (IPA) and published just before the Second World War. IPA’s
intention was to make a list that would be comprehensible to high school students.
The fact that the initial list was deliberately constructed to be very simplistic may
have contributed to some researchers’ animosity towards the making of a list of
propaganda devices altogether.
52
Severin & Tankard’s (2001:111–123) presentation of the IPA’s seven
propaganda devices is brief and will form the basis of this section. The devices are
also explained by Jowett & O’Donnell (1999:232). They are: card stacking, name
calling, glittering generality, transfer, testimonial, plain folks, and bandwagon.48
Card stacking is a propaganda device that challenges the divide between
propaganda and rhetoric. It involves biased selection and use of facts and arguments.
Andersson & Furberg (1973:63) describe this process as selecting plus or minus facts.
Any person or phenomenon can be described with a focus on either plus or minus
facts. Objective persuasion is rare – if not impossible – and a certain amount of spin
and selectivity of information is inevitable. Despite this, it can be argued that if the
card stacking is very conspicuous, political mass communication will normally be
classified as propaganda. Card stacking is almost synonymous with “spin” as defined
in section 3.3.3 above.
Name calling has to do with basic semantics and is used in almost all textual
propaganda. It may even be argued that it is inevitable for all textual communication,
and it is closely related to card stacking. The crucial question is: What labels do we
assign to phenomena? How we refer to a phenomenon and the representations we
select will always be an indication of our attitudes towards the phenomenon in
question. Neutral wording is often an illusion, because all phenomena must normally
be given just one verbal representation with its unique pool of connotations. In this
regard, emotive words can be especially useful for the propagandist (Andersson &
Furberg 1973:76). It is for example rare to find one and the same text referring to the
same group of individuals as terrorists, freedom fighters, insurgents, guerrilla
warriors and resistance movement. The emotive quality and associations connected to
these words are very diverse.
Glittering generality is designed to make us accept and associate a certain
desirable feature with a phenomenon, without actually considering whether this link
is justifiable, precise or plausible. It is related to the tropes euphemism and hyperbole.
48
In the analysis in Chapters 4, 5 and 6, propaganda devices will be written in bold italics to indicate that one of the main
building blocks of the analysis is being used.
53
Its structure is metaphoric, as it suggests that the feature in question is an integral part
of the phenomenon. Extensive use of glittering generality may lead to paradoxical
oxymoron such as “negative income” or “humane warfare”. Glittering generality is in
many respects just a special variant of name calling.
Transfer involves transferring the attributions and/or connotations of one
phenomenon onto another phenomenon. An example is the Ku Klux Klan’s
exploitation of the Christian symbol of the cross. Transfer can be both positive and
negative. For propagandistic purposes, the link established must be of a dubious kind.
The principle is to link something that the audience at large already has an opinion
about into a different context. One could say that connotations are contagious when
transfer is applied successfully. Transfer is a highly effective method and is
especially useful for denigration.
Testimonial has to do with real-life persons expressing their approval or
disapproval of a certain product, idea, etc. The person giving the testimonial must
have authority or some other positive asset to “lend” to the subject he is commenting
upon. Testimonial is in a sense exploitation of credibility. This is a technique
extremely common in advertising, but it can be used for political propagandistic
purposes as well.
Plain folks involves presenting someone as being “of the people”, and
belonging among “us everyday folks”. Even if this reflects the true personality of the
person in question, it can be exploited in a specifically propagandistic way. In the
United States, for instance, there is a tradition of deliberately “folksy” politicians
denouncing the “dirty tricks” of “those Washington politicians”. This device is
inevitable for the populist.
Bandwagon is a way of evoking mechanisms of group psychology. Giving the
impression that many people approve of something or participate in an activity will
encourage more people to join the group. If, for example, all your neighbours join the
NSDAP, that statistically increases the likelihood of your becoming a member too. In
advertising such group-psychology mechanisms is exploited through the device
social proof. “[o]ne means we use to determine what is correct is to find out what
other people think is correct” (Cialdini 2001:140).
54
Having looked at the devices of the IPA, additional devices must be
introduced. Fear appeals can sometimes be a complex device to expose: because
many things are de facto dangerous. Consequently it may be difficult to discredit the
propagandist. Rampton & Stauber (2003:136) argue that “Fear is one of the most
primitive emotions in the human psyche, and it definitely keeps us watching”.
It is important to keep in mind that “what men fear to be real is real in its
consequences.” (Beck 2002:112). Whether there are good reasons to be afraid or not,
the perception of fear within the individual is a process of its own. “Perceptions are
not unreal simply because they are manufactured” (Blumenthal 1980:5). Playing
down a threat is dangerous, but so is playing up a threat – and that is exactly what this
device is about: inciting fear of remote threats. Fear has the potential to checkmate
rational thinking and produce uncivilized behaviour.
Implacatures are inherently suggestive. The important part of such
communication is not what is said, but rather what is not said yet clearly implied.49 It
relates to the explicit/implicit dimension of language. A normal form of implacature
is to answer another question than one is asked – a clever way of sidestepping the real
issue without saying anything that is technically untrue. A classic example of this is
provided by Professor Terry Winograd:
Mother: Where is your boyfriend going to stay when he visits?
Daughter: We have a couch in the living room.
(From Johnson-Cartee & Copeland 2004:168)
Fallacy of impossible certainty is a common propaganda device. It involves
“stating as fact what cannot possibly be known to be true” (Sandor 2001:135).
Another way of phrasing it is unfounded certainty. When all the chips are down, the
proposed “certainty” may in fact turn out to be true. So being inaccurate knowingly is
a different kind of phenomenon. The essential feature of this device is that the
certainty expressed by the propagandist is not provable at that time. It resembles a
bluff where one claims to know more than one knows. The bluffer gets away
uncaught if his bluff is not called.
49
Andersson & Furberg (1973:37) point to similar mechanisms without labelling it implacatures.
55
A group of linguistic scholars called the general semanticists have worked
extensively on misuse of language.50 Three of the misuses of language they
recognized are dealt with here, and shaped into propaganda devices applicable for
propaganda analysis. Propaganda is often strategic misuse of language or deliberate
evasive communication.
To understand the device of dead-level abstracting it is necessary to fully
understand the concept of abstraction. A starting point is that “Any object can be
considered as a set of relations of its parts” (Korzybski 1958:385). Abstraction deals
with the specificity with which we refer to phenomena.51 Exactly the same
phenomenon can be referred to with different words. Severin & Tankard (2001:94)
use the example of a car: the same object can be referred to as “transportation”,
“motor vehicle”, or it may be more specifically referred to as, for instance, a Red
Honda Accord XLI 2.0 1999 model. The two first are high-level abstractions; the
latter is a low-level abstraction with a high degree of specificity.
A message is hard to decode if communication gets stuck at either a high or a
low level of abstraction. Too many specifics can make it difficult to follow the
narrative and see the greater picture of the topic in question – “not seeing the forest
for the trees”. Concise manuals for operating advanced technical equipment may be
examples. Messages stuck at high levels of abstraction can, on the other hand, be
difficult to relate to the real world. High abstraction level has most relevance to
propaganda analysis. Examples of “high-level abstraction terms” are: “justice,
democracy, freedom, mankind, Communism” (Severin & Tankard 2001:97).
Thus, a propagandistic message can be disguised within cascades of high-level
abstractions and virtue words. Cleverly sidestepping touchy topics, and abstaining
from getting into specifics can be effective propaganda devices. It may be difficult to
understand where the argument really is going before one has already bought the
50
Chapter 5: “Problems of Encoding” in Communication theories (Severin & Tankard 2001) is a good introduction to these
issues. Those with a particular interest should consult Korzybski’s (1958) 750-page colossus Science & Sanity.
51
In Korzybski’s words: “The standard meaning of 'abstract', 'abstracting' implies ‘selecting', 'picking out', ‘separating',
‘summarizing', 'deducting', 'removing', 'omitting', 'disengaging', 'taking away', ‘stripping', and, as an adjective, not
'concrete'” (Korzybski 1958:379).
56
argument. Legitimacy and support for a policy may be easily achieved if the
individual fails to see – or understand – anything with the policy to object to.
The other two misuses of language blend in the device called nuance
elimination. This encompasses undue identification and two-valued evaluation.
Simplification is the essence of both “undue identification and two-valued thinking”.
Both involve forcing a diverse reality into a comprehensible, yet misleading,
simplistic frame.
“Undue identification is the failure to see distinctions between members of a
category or class” (Severin & Tankard 2001:97). The value of this to the
propagandist is obvious. Through such mechanisms, the propagandist may lump
together very different phenomena and treat them as one. Undue identification also
relates to the idea of propaganda as an inclusion/exclusion mechanism. The “ingroup” is good, whereas people in the “outside world” are bad and dangerous.
Sometimes propaganda will create a situation where attitudes are reduced to
only two: positive and negative (Ellul 1973:205). Korzybski (1958:xxi, 371) blames
Aristotle and the Greek philosophers for this inherent urge to categorize things in an
either or relation.52 This is a binary system of thinking that resembles a digital world
where everything is expressed by either zero or one. Two-valued evaluation excludes
compromises, neutrality and nuances (Severin & Tankard 2001:99). A Manichean
view of the world is a prototype of two-valued evaluation.
Sometimes it is impossible to avoid simplistic statements. But when the
nuance elimination becomes excessive, the result is inaccuracy. When deliberate
inaccuracy clearly works towards a communicator’s goal the communication may
rightly be labelled as propaganda. Korzybski argues that Aristotle, especially his laws
of thought, is an ancient source of such linguistic fallacies.53 In Chapter 5, it will be
shown that the laws of thought are indeed quite relevant to the propaganda of the war
on terrorism. Below are Aristotle’s three laws of thought:
52
It is not correct to say that Aristotle was totally ignorant of nuances. He did state: “it is not easy to name the intermediate,
but we must define it as that which is neither good nor bad, neither just nor unjust” (Aristotle 1941:30).
53
The author does not concur entirely with Korzybski’s critique of Aristotle. It should be noted that ‘the laws of thought’
are not only about language, but also provide a general foundation for making philosophical and logical arguments.
57
‘The laws of thought'
1) The Law of Identity: whatever is, is.
2) The Law of Contradiction: nothing can both be and not be.
3) The Law of Excluded Middle: everything must either be or not be.
(Korzybski 1958:404).
3.5 Conclusions
In this chapter we have defined propaganda as a technique that in itself is neither
immoral nor moral. Propaganda is strategic political mass communication, and one of
its main uses is to rally support for policies. “Propaganda communications are highly
instrumental” (George 1959:85).
The accuracy of the information and the source of the propaganda only
determine whether we are dealing with black, grey or white propaganda. These three
forms of propaganda have differing moral values, with black propaganda as the most
problematic since it involves deliberate lies. However, it must not be forgotten that
propaganda, as defined here, can be either truth, half-truth or untrue, and it may work
towards universally good as well as utterly bad ends.
There are rationalistic aspects to propaganda, at least to the extent of
considering the propagandist to be instrumental and intentional. Furthermore,
propaganda is a group phenomenon: it is exercised by organizations and has a group
of people as its specific target audience. Unlike propaganda, persuasion can take the
form of personal communication. Rhetoric has persuasion as its objective and is a
more interactive process than propaganda. Another distinguishing feature between
rhetoric and propaganda is in the devices applied.
Propaganda studies started as a separate field of study after the First World
War. At this time few – if anyone at all – distinguished between propaganda and
advertising. Both phenomena were about to find their place in the modern
industrialized world. The two are different, since advertising has economic ends,
whereas propaganda has political or ideological ends. Religious propaganda is a
separate category of propaganda, with religious conversion as its goal.
58
Modern propaganda may exploit Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance.
Another facilitating factor is the information overload that overwhelms the
individual, who may react by relating new political information to existing schemata.
This information overload can make propaganda more effective in establishing a
system of exclusive representation – exclusive, because propaganda does not
encourage discussion, and is often a simplification or reduction of diversity.
The propaganda devices noted by the IPA still have relevance in contemporary
society. The IPA’s list needs to be expanded by other sources, but we must take care
not to expect to be able to distinguish all relevant devices in one list. Here are the 12
propaganda devices that will be looked for in the empirical material of this study:
Card stacking, Name calling, Glittering generality, Transfer, Testimonial,
Plain folks, Bandwagon, Fear appeals, Implacatures, Fallacy of impossible
certainty, Dead-level abstracting, Nuance elimination.
59
60
4. Analysis: Propaganda in the Bush
administration’s war on terrorism
We have now reached the biggest shift in this thesis, and turn to the case study on the
propaganda campaign accompanying the war on terrorism. Moving from debates
about theoretical issues, we actively apply the framework established in Chapters 2
and 3. However, it is crucial not to leave aside all theoretical considerations. An
awareness of theoretical debates may contribute greatly to making an empirical
analysis more fruitful, giving the analyst a keener eye to findings important for
further developing the theoretical framework. After all, all empirical analysis must be
conducted within a theoretical framework.
The analysis section of this thesis has been separated into three chapters,
employing the eight steps of propaganda analysis based on Jowett & O’Donnell
(Chapter 2.1.). In view of the emphasis given to ‘special techniques’ and ‘effects on
the audience’ it was natural to devote separate chapters (5 & 6) to each. The present
chapter examines the basic foundations of the context and nature of the apparatus
disseminating the propaganda, its access to media and the intended recipients. The
five first steps of the list that was introduced on page 11 will be executed here in
Chapter 4.
4.1 Ideology and purpose of the propaganda campaign
The dominant ideology of the United States is firmly based on the idea of a
participatory democratic political structure and a free enterprise capitalist economic
structure (Jowett & O’Donnell 1999:312).
The ideology of the Bush administration is not identical to the ideology of the United
States. Naturally, the similarities are great, but each US administration has a limited –
yet noticeable – ability to add its own ideological flavour. A full analysis of
contemporary US ideology is an immense task, so only a few key points will be
treated in the following. Two terms stand out as ideologically central in US foreign
61
policy since the Second World War: freedom and democracy. Arguments construed
around these words will be specifically sought in the material.54
A recently added aspect of the ideology is the principle of pre-emptive – or
rather preventive – action. This is the core of the Bush doctrine, and was formally
introduced in the National Security Strategy of September 2002. It postulates nontolerance towards terrorism, and emphasizes the need to engage militarily on the
international scene to prevent future terrorist attacks. The Bush doctrine is a global
anti-terror agenda with emphasis on being pro-active.
Since the events of 9/11, terrorism has become the buzzword around
Washington. The Bush administration perceives and portrays itself as the number one
enemy of terrorism in the world. This is not just a temporary political wave: it is a
lasting ideological tenet. Ironically, the USA has earlier supported and armed groups
that at the time, or subsequently, have engaged in terrorist activities – including bin
Laden and the Afghan Mujihadeen (Clarke 2004; Benjamin & Simon 2002).
The purposes of the Bush propaganda campaign in the war on terrorism are
diverse, but are also quite similar to the goals of the war on terrorism itself. Here is a
list of some of the most important goals up until 2005:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
To rally domestic and foreign support for the war on terrorism
To make states contribute financially, militarily, with intelligence etc.
To prevent further terrorist attacks, especially on US soil
To acquire enough votes for re-election in 2004
To win the “battle of words”, effectively choking counterpropaganda
After the public outrage at the war in Vietnam, forging public support for any
war has become an extremely important objective for any US administration at war.
Public support is a necessary supplement to the war on terrorism. The overarching
goal of the war itself is to prevent further terrorist attacks. As history has unfolded
after 9/11, it has proven possible to fight the war on terrorism with varying levels of
legitimacy and support inside and outside the borders of the USA.
54
These terms were important in the previous war against Iraq in 1991 (Jowett & O’Donnell 1999:313). Another example
is the Vietnam War, which was escalated in 1965 to protect the “free and democratic South Vietnam” (Page 1996:298).
62
It is a goal for any administration’s public relations squad to ensure the
continued existence of that administration through re-election. It is a goal of the
propaganda campaign, but not a goal for the war on terrorism per se. The propaganda
campaign must transform the potentially unpopular policy of offensive and
aggressive acts in the war on terrorism into an acceptable duty and sacrifice for the
American people. The idea of the permanent campaign must be kept in mind when
dealing with this subject.
The easiest parameter to measure for this thesis is the outcome of the 2004 US
Presidential election. Another argument for including ‘re-election’ as a separate goal
for the propaganda campaign is because the major thrust of Bush’s 2004 campaign
focused on the War on Terrorism. The administration itself was keen to link these
issues, according to a leaked memo from Bush’s political advisor Karl Rove (Clarke
2004:242).
To prevent further terrorist attacks was a goal that became specified as the war
on terrorism evolved. A distinction was made between attacks on US soil and attacks
elsewhere in the world. After a while the Bush doctrine explicitly stated that it was
terrorist strikes against the USA that was of major importance.
We are defending the peace by taking the fight to the enemy. We will confront them
overseas so we do not have to confront them here at home. (Bush.2004.12.07)
4.2 Context
The borders that divide domestic from international, the police from the military,
crime from war and war from peace – are overthrown (Beck 2002:115).
No other recent events can match 9/11 as regards impact on American society. The
USA was a nation transformed after this “Black Tuesday.” Americans rallied around
the flag and President Bush – and most non-Americans rallied around the USA. Both
critical and more neutral commentary on 9/11 has acknowledged “the near pitchperfect leadership that President Bush showed in its immediate wake” (PIPA
2004a:13).
63
“It is breathtaking how quickly and completely the priorities of US foreign
policy have changed” (Beck 2002:113). A tangible change in the body politic was the
establishment of the Department of Homeland Security on 1 March 2003. Former
Governor Tom Ridge was appointed as its Secretary.55
The Copenhagen School of security studies has worked extensively on the
concept of securitization. “Securitization can be seen as a more extreme version of
politicization” (Buzan et al. 1998:23). It is a process of moving issues to the top of
the political agenda. Securitization occurs because “the special nature of security
threats justifies the use of extraordinary measures to handle them” (Buzan et al.
1998:21).
“Fighting terrorism” has risen to the top of the agenda of international
relations. This is in accordance with the desires of the Bush administration. The only
snag in a longer perspective for the Bush administration is that it has been trapped in
its own rhetoric. To some extent, the administration has lost the ability to criticize the
harsh countermeasures of other states in their “wars on terrorism”. For instance,
Israel, China and Russia have been given almost carte blanche in their struggles
against their own terrorists (Beck 2003:166; Edelstein & Krebs 2005:94).
The US propaganda campaign is war propaganda in a time that for most
people is experienced as peacetime. The campaign was initiated at a time of national
crisis and with a home audience that craved a punishing military intervention against
the perpetrators of 9/11. States sometimes overreact to terrorist attacks. It can be
argued that the UK and Israel both have overreacted to their own terrorist problems
(Silke 2005). There are reasons for claiming that the US has done the same through
the war on terrorism. As Pippa Norris states: “What changed, and changed decisively
with 9/11, were American perceptions of the threat of world terrorism more than the
actual reality.” (Norris et al. 2003:4). This is in accordance with what Searle (1999)
labels “institutional reality”.56
55
“Homeland security is a concerted national effort to prevent terrorist attacks within the United States, reduce America’s
vulnerability to terrorism, and minimize the damage and recover from attacks that do occur” (NSHS 2002:14).
56
Such a conception of reality is interesting to relate to the war on terrorism, because it will be a war on terrorism only if
both sides of the conflict accept it as such. “In institutional reality we use language not only to describe but partly to create
the very facts described” and “Saying in the right context, ‘War is declared’ is declaring war” (Searle 1999:133).
64
4.3 The propagandist and the propaganda organization
The presidency of George W. Bush is to some extent pursuing a folksy style.
(Woodward 2004:86). If this is actively pursued it may be referred to as an instance
of the propaganda device plain folks. However, this has not prevented the Bush
administration from developing a very professional handling of its communications.
Mass communications have had fairly standardized content – which has at times
frustrated journalists who have ended up with little news to report.57
For this study, the communicators of the Bush administration have been sorted
into three hierarchical levels of importance, according to the significance of the
person’s official statements. An important independent variable that affects this
variable is power and position within the administration. These variables are not
identical, because some politicians are eager to use the media to express their views,
whereas others prefer to exercise their influence out of the limelight.
Bush administration 2001–2004 communicators
1. President
2. Secretary of Defense
Secretary of State
Vice President
3. National Security Adviser
Deputy Secretary of Defense
George Bush
Donald Rumsfeld
Colin Powell
Dick Cheney
Condoleezza Rice
Paul Wolfowitz
Level 1 consists solely of President George W. Bush. When he speaks,
America speaks. The importance of his statements is indisputable. At level 2 are
found Rumsfeld, Powell and Cheney, Secretaries of the crucial State and Defense
Departments, and the US Vice President.58 Their statements are powerful indicators
of the direction of US foreign policy.
57
Dana Milbank, who covers the White House for the Washington Post, is quoted as saying: “You go through the effort of
getting Karl Rove on the phone and he'll say exactly the same thing as Scott McClellan” (Fritz et al. 2004:24).
58
The first time this hierarchy was set up Dick Cheney was assigned to level 3 and not level 2. As the analysis evolved it
became clear that Cheney was more important than that. He “held great sway with the President” (Woodward 2004:27–28).
65
This leaves only Condi Rice and Paul Wolfowitz at level 3. They held
subordinate positions compared with the other politicians included in this analysis
during the time span studied here. Their statements are less important than those of
the “principals”. Nevertheless, both Rice and Wolfowitz have been important figures
pulling the strings of the Bush administration’s security policies. Rice’s elevation to
Secretary of State in 2005 illustrates her influence prior to that too.
Many accounts of the Bush administration’s war on terrorism have focused on
the internal dynamics and tugs-of-war within the Bush administration. Especially
Cheney and Wolfowitz have been portrayed as hell-bent for war in Iraq, allegedly
expressing this view very early after 9/11.59
4.4 Target audience
The propaganda campaign accompanying the global war on terrorism has an
exceptionally diverse audience. In a sense, the propaganda is aimed at the entire
planet. However, some groups are of special importance. Here, the following will be
examined: Americans, Muslims, Europeans, terrorists, hostile states, friendly states.60
These recipients are quite diverse; some are states and some are groups of
people. This multitude of recipients is an enormous challenge for the Bush
administration. The extensive efforts by the Bush administration to gain popular
support for its war on terrorism have at times resonated very differently among
different recipients. Americans may crave punitive action, whereas foreign audiences
may want assurances of cautious behaviour and magnanimity. The pattern that
becomes clear is that the Bush administration has always put Americans over all
other audiences. This is probably a wise decision, yet it has meant that the support of
other audiences has at times been sacrificed.61
59
See Clarke (2004:246), Freedman (2004:30), Woodward (2002:346) & (2004:175). “It is widely believed that ...the urge
to war came first and the intelligence later” (Freedman 2004:8). Powell is often described as an adversary to this thinking
and its advocates – in particular Wolfowitz. (Woodward 2002:49, 61, 83, 346; also Woodward 2004:21–22).
60
The various audiences will be referred to in italics. They are important building blocks of the analysis. The audiences
examined here are not all possible audiences. Part of the reason for this choice is that PIPA and PEW use some of them.
61
Woodward (2004:242) quotes a high-ranking CIA officer as saying: “we are trying to give conflicting messages to two
different audiences simultaneously. There’s inevitably going to be some bleed over”.
66
The most obvious examples of hostile states are Afghanistan and Iraq. Other
members of this category may be found in Iran and North Korea. “Hostile” refers to
how the state is perceived by the Bush administration. Categorizing the three
members of Bush’s “Axis of Evil” in this way should be unproblematic.
The group of friendly states is very diverse, including for instance the UK,
Russia and Saudi Arabia. The Bush administration was quite explicit in
dichotomizing the world into two antagonistic camps. A central point is that the
populations of many friendly states may be hostile, as is the case in Jordan. It is the
political leadership who decides the nature of the official relationship with the US.
4.5 Media utilization techniques
Media utilization techniques determine how propaganda uses the media available to it
(Jowett & O’Donnell 1999:321). In the case examined here more or less all media
have been applied. This is because the Bush administration has complete access to
media, and most of the administration’s media happenings are broadcast live by news
channels. In this respect, the news media can at times function as a gigantic
microphone rack. This said, media war can nevertheless be a very demanding task.
Part of the reason has been explained by Phillip Taylor:
Governments cannot always be certain about which stories secure media coverage,
despite all their efforts to shape the political agenda of their free media. The
democratic media may be influenced by political communications but it does not
follow that they are forced to become uncritical outlets for political propaganda
(Taylor 1997:78).
This illustrates some problems that the Bush administration is facing – but it
does not alter the fact that the Bush administration has exceptionally good conditions
for getting its message through, not least since it can opt to utilize media outlets that
are positively inclined. Many have commented on Fox News Channel as one such
actor in the news media. (Rampton & Stauber 2003; Franken 2003). It should also be
mentioned that reporters who the administration dislike strongly may be subjected to
discrimination. This might complicate the work reporters, and it is possible that the
Bush administration can discipline and moderate the impartiality of the “watch dog”.
67
The Bush administration performs speech acts in the mass media. It employs
the media to issue threats, such as ultimatums, and also to give promises and make
binding commitments. This is often facilitated by reporters, who frequently ask
members of the Bush administration about their message to certain groups. For
example, the final question of Powell’s press conference on 14 September 2001 was:
“What is your message to the Taliban?” This convention applies to both friendly and
hostile audiences. Reporters frequently ask whether the administration has “a
message for the American people”. The Bush administration is conscious of utilizing
the window of opportunity that such questions represent.
In 2002 the Office of Strategic Influence (OSI) was established in the
Pentagon. It was soon shut down, as it was reported that its modus operandi would
include “developing plans to provide news items, possibly even false ones, to foreign
media organizations” (Rampton & Stauber 2003:66). It is possible that such practices
in media utilization techniques persisted beyond the closing of the OSI. What do the
people who were assigned to the OSI do today? OSI is one token of the grey and
black propaganda campaign of the war on terrorism that is conducted by the military.
Finally, one should not underestimate the value of President Bush’s media
appearances as a form of national therapy for Americans. Through history, but also
through fictional Hollywood movies, people have been accustomed to a Commanderin-Chief leading the Nation in grief during times of national crisis. President Ronald
Reagan was extremely skilful at this particular presidential task. The most striking
example of this was perhaps when Bush announced September 14 to be a “National
day of prayer and remembrance”. The following quote is from this announcement:
We mourn with those who have suffered great and disastrous loss. All our hearts
have been seared by the sudden and sense-less taking of innocent lives. We pray for
healing and for the strength to serve and encourage one another in hope and faith
(Bush 2001.09.13).
68
5. Special techniques to maximize effect
Let us now turn to the identification of propaganda strategies and devices in the mass
communication of the Bush administration. The definition of propaganda must still
be kept in mind. One important requirement in definition I is that propaganda must be
systematic mass communication. If a propaganda strategy appears only one or two
times, it cannot be as significant as those devices that are repeatedly invoked.
It has been a challenge to decide upon the structure of this analysis of
propaganda devices. What will be done here is a loose chronological approach
identifying the propaganda devices used in 15 main propaganda strategies, starting
with the strategies and devices introduced in the first days after 9/11, and ending up
with those applied most recently.
The 15 strategies presented here are divided into three different periods with 5
from each period. Each period focuses primarily on a specific time span. However,
this must not be taken to mean that the devices were relevant only in the period in
which they are listed here. It should also be stated that the 15 strategies do not
encompass all the propaganda strategies in the war on terrorism. Some strategies have
been left out of this analysis.
One main reason for leaving possible “strategies” out has been that they were
not systematically disseminated. Bush once said that the war in Iraq is about peace
(Bush 2003.04.11), and on another occasion talked of a crusade on terrorism (Bush
2001.09.16). That does not mean that these were propaganda strategies. They are
probably just slips of the tongue.
Some of the most fundamental propaganda strategies were introduced very
early on. It was necessary for the Bush administration to clarify what kind of a
struggle it perceived the war on terrorism to be. The administration tried to frame the
conflict, and was eager to announce its expectations regarding the behaviour of other
states. These early cornerstones were also stepping stones for most of the subsequent
propaganda strategies introduced as the war on terrorism evolved.
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5.1 The conception of the War on Terrorism
Terrorism is terrorism. (Powell 2001.09.16 on CNN’s Late edition)
Terrorism is terrorism is terrorism (Rice 2004.04.08)62
A thorough reading of the early statements of the Bush administration shows,
unsurprisingly, that they were not systematic during the first days. This did not last
for long, as an official line was soon established, and statements of administration
members became more streamlined and similar. The mass communication criteria of
standardized content (see section 3.1.2) soon became evident.
This is the phase in which the Bush administration had to be pro-active to
create the news frame, or schemata, that it wanted the public to use as an
unconscious tool for organizing news and information regarding terrorism.
“Terrorist events are commonly understood through news ‘frames’ that simplify,
prioritize, and structure the narrative flow of events” (Norris et al. 2003:10).
This early phase was a golden opportunity for the Bush administration to lay
the foundations for the war on terrorism in general, as well as the propaganda
campaign that accompanied it. Sympathy and international support for the USA and
Americans were very high, not least within foreign political elites. “Immediately after
9/11, political leaders from around the world, including European allies, repeated
Bush’s message” (Norris et al. 2003:294). As time passed, however, this
amplification system decreased gradually. Is it a War on Terrorism?
“I don’t know whether we should use the word war.” (Chirac 2001.09.18)
The war on terrorism neither was, nor is, perceived as a war. The starting event of the
campaign is inarguably the strike on the World Trade Center, on 11 September 2001.
Prior to this, terrorism was considered as much a nuisance as a real threat. Indeed, on
11 September, Rumsfeld was reluctant to categorize what had happened as war:
“What words the lawyers will use to characterize it is for them” (Rumsfeld
2001.09.11).63 However, this evasive line was quickly put to rest, when Bush said:
62
The quote is from Rice’s testimony before the 9/11 commission. The administration was initially quite reluctant to let her
testify. The full text is available from: http://www.9/11commission.gov/archive/hearing9/index.html
63
Rumsfeld’s deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, referred to what was about to start as an ‘enterprise’ (Wolfowitz 2001.09.14).
70
“We stand together to win the war against terrorism” (Bush 2001.09.11).
Furthermore, NATO invoked its article V, and the UNSC (2001) agreed on
Resolution 1368: “Recognizing the inherent right of individual or collective selfdefence in accordance with the Charter”. These acts were a formal way of showing
that the USA – and NATO – perceived itself to be at war.
Bush started to include war rhetoric in his speeches, using phrases like: “now
that war has been declared upon us” (Bush 2001.09.13).64 There was a fair amount of
name calling going on to establish the perception of a war on terrorism in the minds
of all target groups. As the campaign evolved, the Bush administration increasingly
referred to the “war on terror”. This fitted more with what Iraq and Saddam had
exposed its people to, and gave the Bush administration freer hands to decide who
was a “legitimate target” in the war on terror/terrorism.
Some fear appeals were also used to launch the efforts of the Bush
administration as a war of self-defence.65 The following quote from Rice illustrates
this:
The United States faces a situation in which we really are in a situation of selfdefense. If no one believes that these are dangerous people to the health and wellbeing of the United States, then just look again at that tape on September 11th. [....]
Again, if you don't think that this is about self-defense, just look at those pictures on
September 11th. (Rice 2001.09.19)
Mere pictures of Ground Zero were enough to incite fear in Americans.
Making a reference in this manner suggests that whoever opposes the idea of the war
on terrorism as a war of self-defence is showing disrespect to the memory of all those
who lost their lives on 9/11. The perception of a war on terrorism was widely
accepted, and many of those critical of much of the Bush administration’s handling of
9/11 agree that it was a necessary feature of the administration’s strategic political
communication at this stage: “Any leader whom one can imagine as President on
September 11 would have declared a war on terrorism” (Clarke 2004:244).
64
This assertion is only partly true since Bin Laden and al Qaeda had declared war on the United States five years earlier
through a Fatwa in the London-based newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi.So,war was not declared ‘now’, but it was only now that
the USA would recognize and acknowledge the “war declaration”. Hence, the war was a product of institutional reality.
65
This claim is not necessarily justified. See Malnes (1994:79–95) for an analysis of the right of national self-defense.
71
We conclude that the name calling and fear appeals employed to forge the
concept of a war on terrorism come forward as predominantly “white” propaganda. In
the beginning, there was a genuine debate as to whether this really was a war, but the
Bush administration managed to short-circuit such discussions in a propagandistic
manner. However, whether it really is a war against terrorism remains an open
question. There is much to suggest that Höijer, Nohrstedt & Ottosen are correct in
arguing that:
In short, the ‘war on terrorism’ was a propagandistic and rhetorical device for
establishing power over meanings constructed and exchanged about September 11
(Höijer et al. 2004:7).
5.1.1 Who are the terrorists?
Before you can try and eliminate an enemy, you must first define that enemy
(Mamdani 2001: 9).
Name calling is a device almost ubiquitous in all war propaganda. It is essential
when it comes to denigrating the enemy. Labelling someone a terrorist is a name
calling that is inevitable in the war on terrorism. The terrorists have also been given
other labels by the Bush administration such as ‘evil-doers’, ‘mass-murderers’. In the
State of the Union Address 2002 Bush used the stylish phrase: “dangerous killers,
schooled in the methods of murder” (Bush SotU, 2002). Now, these descriptions are
more propagandistic, and also constitute a fear appeal. Terrorism, as defined in 3.1.1,
is illegal and indeed worthy of condemnation. But who is a terrorist and who is not?
This relates to Aristotle’s law of Identity: Whatever is, is. A monumental
struggle against evil cannot be dismissed as a bad idea. However, “evil” is a very
abstract concept and needs to be accompanied by lower abstractions to specify what –
or who – this evil really is. A part of this strategy was also to emphasize that terrorism
– and not Islam – is evil: “Islam is peace. These terrorists don't represent peace. They
represent evil and war” (Bush 2001.09.17).66
66
In section 3.2.2 it was stated that “religious propaganda” would not be analyzed closely. However, leaving all religious
aspects of the propaganda campaign aside would be unwise. A main reason for this is that al Qaeda so clearly defines the
conflict in religious terms. A strategy working towards tolerance between religions can be seen as a strategy of its own.
72
Colin Powell played a prominent role at this stage and he stated that
“[Saddam] is one of the leading terrorists on the face of the earth” (Powell
2001.09.13). There was no discussion as to whether 9/11 was a terrorist attack or not,
but to assign this label to a brutal tyrant creates confusion towards the phenomenon
of “state terror”. It should be noted that through Powell’s statements Saddam Hussein
was singled out as a legitimate target of the war on terrorism only two days after
9/11.
This early strategy of name calling applied by the Bush administration must
be seen in connection with the nuance elimination foundation of the entire
propaganda campaign to be examined in the next section (5.1.3). This gave the Bush
administration room to manoeuvre and a terminology to frame the conflict in.
5.1.2 No distinctions, no neutrality
Every nation has a choice to make. In this conflict, there is no neutral ground. (Bush
2001.10.07)
“We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and
those who harbour them” (Bush 2004.09.11)
These statements form one of the most fundamental of all the propaganda strategies
applied by the Bush administration. They effectively transformed the world’s states
into two categories: either a friendly state or a hostile state. Neutrality was not
tolerated. If a nation did not actively define itself among the non-terrorist nations, the
US would consider it to be supporting terrorists, and it would be treated as a terrorist.
The device applied is nuance elimination. Bush says, “we will make no
distinction”. Note that he is not denying that such a distinction could be made – only
that he and his administration will not make such a distinction. Relating these early
statements to Aristotle’s law of thought provides an interesting comparison.
• Whatever is, is:
“Terrorism is terrorism” (Powell 2001.09.16 & Rice 2004.04.08)
• Nothing can both be and not be:
“Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists” (Bush 2001.09.20)
• Everything must either be or not be:
“In this conflict, there is no neutral ground.” (Bush 2001.10.07)
73
This “Aristotelian” propaganda was directed at all the recipients (except
perhaps Americans), and it functioned as an inclusion/exclusion mechanism. To all
other audiences – states and people alike – it constituted a threat. Through these
statements, the world was forced into two categories without nuances or middle
positions. Such a Manichean worldview combined with the statement: “We will make
no distinction” phrase, is a way of saying that those who oppose the USA in any way
may be treated in the same manner as those who committed the acts of 9/11.
The phrase stating: “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists”
also has biblical allusions. Consider the following two passages: “He that is not with
me is against me” (Holy Bible: Luke 11:23) and “He who is not with me is against
me” (Holy Bible: Matthew 12:30). These allusions are tokens of Bush’s personal
religious beliefs, and also a way of reaching out to some of his staunch religious
supporters.
Many states were exposed to massive pressure, and Powell is often given
credit for having brought together the coalition of friendly states that ultimately
deposed the Taliban regime. Pakistan came under particular pressure, and consent
was achieved through statements like:
They can’t say we will help you fighting terrorism here but we will not help you
fighting terrorism elsewhere. Terrorism is terrorism. (Powell 2001.09.16)
5.1.3 Ride the bandwagon
The strategy of coercing somewhat reluctant states into the coalition was
coupled with appeals to the states of the world to bandwagon and join the civilized
world in the struggle against evil. “If you love freedom, you must join with us must
join with America and France”67 (Bush 2001.09.18). The bandwagon device was
indeed used from time to time, but often it was subordinate to the “either you are with
us or the terrorists” threat. The impression that one gets is that the US applied sticks
more than carrots when the global coalition to fight terrorism was forged.
67
The early Franco- American unity, harmony, and consensus was not very tenacious of life. (More on this in section 5.3.)
The press conference is available from: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010918-8.html
74
The credibility of this strategy was largely discredited by the idea that “the
mission defines the coalition” (Rumsfeld 2002.01.09).68 This idea is commonly
attributed to Rumsfeld personally. Since the US was likely to define any mission in
the global war on terrorism, this move represented a clear reliance on unilateralism in
the war on terrorism. In this respect the Bush administration failed in taking “steps to
assure their coalition partners that US policies will remain multilateral” (Wanadi
2002:185).
Powell warned Bush the week after 9/11 that the coalition would fall apart if
Iraq was attacked prematurely (Woodward 2002:84–87). There was much talk of a
weak coalition providing more moral support than military support in Iraq (Brown
2004:60). This was reported widely and used by Senator JohnKerry in his bid to
become President.
Many perceived the lack of a wider more active coalition to be a
mismanagement of the war in Iraq and war on terrorism. In this respect one might
argue that the bandwagon strategy was neither entirely convincing nor very
successful. Bush rarely responds directly to criticism in his major speeches, but he
did address this particular topic in his 2004 State of the Union Address. It is a
brilliantly designed instance of bandwagon, which was effective on the audience
present. The crowd applauded as Bush was rattling off 17 coalition partners.
Some critics have said our duties in Iraq must be internationalized. This particular
criticism is hard to explain to our partners in Britain, Australia, Japan, South Korea,
the Philippines, Thailand, Italy, Spain, Poland, Denmark, Hungary, Bulgaria,
Ukraine, Romania, the Netherlands -- (applause) -- Norway, El Salvador, and the 17
other countries that have committed troops to Iraq. (Bush SotU 2004).
68
Rumsfeld did indeed very early make statements hinting towards this idea. Five days after 9/11 he stated: “My guess is
there will be a number of different coalitions” (Rumsfeld 2001.09.16). This was said at the same time as Powell was
working to build the coalition. Rumsfeld has also been inconsistent on this, since he also has used the bandwagon device:
“Today there are 90 nations involved in that coalition. It is the largest coalition in history” (Rumsfeld 2002.09.25).
75
5.1.4 Make no mistake about it, we are determined
Make no mistake about it: this administration has got a firm goal and a
determination to achieve the goal.
Make no mistake about it: my goal, my intentions will not diminish with time.
We’ll bring them to justice. Make no mistake about it. (Bush 2001. 09.18)
The quotes above are from the same press conference. It lasted a mere fifteen
minutes. During which Bush repeated the phrase “make no mistake about it” three
times.69 What he is basically saying is this: we have a goal, we have a policy to reach
that goal, and we are determined to go through with that policy. The propaganda
strategy was crafted to demonstrate leadership and generate support.
It has been very difficult to categorize this with a specific propaganda device
from our list. The information is not clearly inaccurate, and the perception it seeks to
shape is the perception of the Bush administration’s determination in this matter. It
does however have a flavour of fallacy of impossible certainty as it is impossible at
this stage to know whether the goals presented will be reached.
The strategy is an example of a speech act performing a commitment to pursue
the war on terrorism with great determination. This strategy occurred frequently in
the first weeks of the propaganda campaign. The same phrases were reiterated:
“Underneath our tears is the strong determination of America (Bush 2001.09.15) and
“Make no mistake about it: We’re determined”. (Bush 2001.09.16)
It must be said that this is highly conventional war propaganda. It is feasible to
categorize this strategy as rhetoric too – and it is not unlike the motivational pep-talks
used by coaches and athletes when talking about their chances of winning in
forthcoming competitions. The use of such a commitment propaganda strategy was
very predictable to the extent that one might argue that the Bush administration
lacked leadership if it had not invoked such mechanisms. Saying something like:
“We’re not sure, but we hope to win the war on terrorism!” just would not do.
69
In fact this was a joint press conference with President Jacques Chirac of France, so Chirac also used a few of those
fifteen minutes. The full text is available from http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010918-8.html
76
The strategy was indeed effective in the early stages of the war on terrorism as
the large number of states in the coalition going into Afghanistan proves. The main
groups this propaganda was aimed at were arguably Americans, terrorists and hostile
and friendly states. For the home crowd it is necessary to sway morale to ensure
energetic participation in the forthcoming conflict.
This propaganda is better understood through the insights of game theory and
speech acts. In section 3.1.2 the notion was established that speech acts are a way of
doing things with words. “The act of committing oneself in one way or another is
characteristic of all speech acts.” (Midgaard et al 1973:106). To combine the theory
of speech acts with game theory provides an interesting approach, since game theory
deals with the strategic interaction among rational actors.70
“Commitment is a strategic move, a move that induces the other player to
choose in ones favour” (Schelling 1960:122). Correspondingly, the “make no
mistake” commitment strategy can be seen as a way of threatening terrorists by
saying: “We will not falter or surrender. We are determined to stand out any kind of
ordeal you might cast upon us, and the outcome will be victory for us.” Through such
statements Bush officially declared and committed himself to being involved in this
conflict for the long haul. One statement of high stylistic quality, with evocative and
emotional language, contributed to this strategy. This is G. W. Bush at his best,
exercising real leadership.
This conflict was begun on the timing and terms of others. It will end in a way, and
at an hour, of our choosing (Bush 2001.09.14).
5.2 Beyond Afghanistan: The doctrine of prevention
The introduction of the Axis of Evil metaphor in Bush’s 2002 State of the Union
address is a hallmark in the war on terrorism. It marked the end of the first phase of
the war, and announced that the global war on terrorism was a much greater matter
70
Game theory is not explained thoroughly in this thesis. See Hovi (1998) for the basic concepts of game theory. There is
ample reason to believe that this sort of rationalist thinking has an important role within the Bush administration. Rumsfeld
recommended his colleagues and subordinates to read “rat-choice ace” Thomas Schelling works (Woodward 2002:22).
77
than merely deposing the Taliban regime and bringing justice or death to the shadowy
masterminds and culprits of 9/11.
In his State of the Union address, Bush specified what would constitute the
next phase of the war on terrorism. The introduction of the Axis of Evil also marked a
watershed, after which public support around the world for the Bush administration’s
war on terrorism started to decrease. Up until then, support among Americans had
been consistently very high (Kull 2004:40).
After the National Security Strategy of the United States (NSS) was released in
September 2002, the option of so-called pre-emption had been officially approved as
a vital strategy for the USA. It has been argued that this shift “represents the most
sweeping reformulation of US strategy in over half a century” (Kegley Jr. &
Raymond 2004:37). The release of the NSS marks the end of the period to be studied
here in section 5.2. After the issuing of NSS, it was quite evident that the Bush
administration was determined to invade Iraq and topple the regime of Saddam
Hussein.
5.2.1 The Axis of Evil
States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to
threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these
regimes pose a grave and growing danger. (Bush SotU 2002)
When Iraq, North Korea, and Iran were introduced as the axis of evil, it became clear
that the Bush administration perceived the enemy to be “Not merely an evil but a
conspiracy of evil” (Heradstveit 2003:14). Afghanistan had been conquered, so
attention was redirected to other hostile states. This was a clever step in order to
exploit the effects of the name calling and fear appeals which occurred immediately
after 9/11 and furnish the minds of the audience with new evils through yet more
name calling.
The “axis” metaphor was originally meant to describe the relationship between
each of the three countries and terrorism (Woodward 2004:93).71 This intended
71
Chapter 8 of Woodward (2004) is an interesting account of how the Axis of Evil metaphor was conceived, processed,
communicated and received by various audiences.
78
interpretation quickly deteriorating as the news media and the audience joined in a
collective decoding, seeing the axis of evil as a counterpart to the earlier Axis nations
well known from the Second World War. The metaphor had a great “freewheeling”
connotative potential.
Let us look at this metaphor in relation to Korzybski’s ideas of abstraction. It
is an example of what may happen when you move down from high-level
abstractions and you start to specify more clearly what you really mean. The highlevel abstraction word “evil” had been omnipresent in the rhetoric and propaganda of
the war on terrorism. This had gone by without much public outcry. But who, and
what, is evil? Through the Axis of Evil metaphor, this was now clearly specified.
Quite another question was whether all of these three countries were genuinely evil.
The propaganda strategy was aimed at all audiences, and it was successful in
winning the battle of words because “everyone” was talking about it. However, in a
longer perspective the introduction of the metaphor represents an extension of what
the war on terrorism really is, or should be – an extension that was to make it
increasingly problematic for the Bush administration to forge public support (see
Chapter 6). As new targets less intuitively understood as terrorism or terrorists were
defined, the war on terrorism became more difficult for many people to understand
and support.
5.2.2 Freedom, liberty, humanity and peace
In section 4.1 it was stated that democracy and freedom were likely to be among the
most prominent ideological terms of the propaganda campaign. Closer examination
of the material shows that the concept of “democracy” was less important than
“freedom”. Even further analysis of the material further revealed that the concepts of
“peace” and “humanity” were more closely linked with the concept of freedom than
was democracy in Bush’s major speeches. Democracy was certainly mentioned a lot
in connection with the war in Iraq, yet talk of ‘democracy’ became more prominent in
the rhetoric and propaganda as other reasons for invading Iraq largely were
disproved.
79
The following four quotes can indicate how these emotive words were used.
They are among the most “ideological” quotes found in the empirical material
considered in this analysis. The ideological terms that were found are written in
upper-case letters to illustrate typographically their predominance:
We choose FREEDOM and the dignity of EVERY LIFE. Steadfast in our purpose,
we now press on. We have known FREEDOM’s price. We have shown FREEDOM’s
power. And in this great conflict, my fellow Americans, we will see FREEDOM’s
victory. Thank you all. May God bless. (Bush SotU 2002).
We exercise power without conquest, and we sacrifice for the LIBERTY of
strangers. Americans are a FREE people, who know that FREEDOM is the right of
EVERY PERSON and the future of EVERY NATION. The LIBERTY we prize is not
America’s gift to the world, it is God’s gift to HUMANITY. (Bush SotU 2003).
The United States, with other countries, will work to advance LIBERTY and PEACE
in that region. Our goal will not be achieved overnight, but it can come over time.
The power and appeal of HUMAN LIBERTY is felt in EVERY LIFE and EVERY
LAND. And the greatest power of FREEDOM is to overcome hatred and violence,
and turn the creative gifts of MEN AND WOMEN to the pursuits of PEACE. (Bush
2003.03.17, The eve of the battle in Iraq).
We are committed to FREEDOM in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and in a PEACEFUL
Palestine. The advance of FREEDOM is the surest strategy to undermine the appeal
of terror in the world. Where FREEDOM takes hold, hatred gives way to hope.
When FREEDOM takes hold, MEN AND WOMEN turn to the PEACEFUL pursuit
of a better life. (Bush 2003.05.01, on the USS Abraham Lincoln).
Most of Bush’s major speeches contain a paragraph that involves an exercise
in ideological phrases. These examples from four of the most important speeches of
the war on terrorism underline this. The propaganda device at work here is dead-level
abstracting. Taken out of context, these statements are difficult to relate to reality.
Indeed, even if they are given a proper context it is still hard to derive any
unambiguous semantic meaning from some passages.
A quantitative breakdown of these passages shows that 28 of the 223 words
are high-level abstractions dealing with either freedom, liberty, peace or humanity.72
This is more than 12,5% of the total – a quite high figure. The number would have
been significantly higher if one had excluded strictly functional words like
prepositions, articles, conjunctions, auxiliary verbs etc. This device was employed
systematically.
72
Freedom and liberty are synonyms. Free and peaceful are adjectival forms of freedom and peace. The references to
‘humanity’ or man in general also come in different shapes. All in all, these words amount to 28 instances in the quotes.
80
A statement like “the greatest power of freedom is to overcome hatred and
violence” may sound nice, but it is hard to extract any substantial meaning out of it.
In the Middle East, the hatred towards the US increased as they inarguably brought
violence to an already violence-plagued region. Was the war in Iraq really a display
of “the power of freedom”? Demonstrators would eventually ask President Bush: Is
this your freedom? (See Appendix III).
The passages above were probably targeted less at hostile states and terrorists,
and more at Americans, Europeans, and friendly states – groups that by and large
cherish these ideas. The Bush administration has repeatedly stated that its adversaries
hate freedom. “We love freedom, and these cold-blooded killers hate freedom.”
(Bush 2002.06.19) Bin Laden’s response to this will be examined in section 6.1.2.
5.2.3 Fear and patriotism: end of discussion
The mechanisms of propaganda Göring referred to in the introduction, in
which patriotism is exploited to gag opposition, was at work in the wake of 9/11
(Fritz et al. 2004:28; Norris et al. 2003:296 ). It is an example of internal unity forged
by the notion of external hostility and threats. One might sense reverberations of
propaganda as an exclusion/inclusion mechanism. Both terrorism and the Bush
administration’s fear appeals played a role in creating the feelings of fear and
national urgency. In this context, “What is politically decisive is not so much risks as
the perception of risks” (Beck 2002:112). If the public perceives something to be
dangerous they expect the authorities to take measures to combat this on their behalf.
Interestingly, the following accusation caused uproar: “The Senate is more
interested in special interests in Washington and not interested in the security of the
American people” (Bush 2002.09.23). Many Senators felt deeply offended that their
concern for the security of the American people and their patriotism was questioned
when they refused to give Bush another “blank check” in the war on terrorism (Snow
2003:23–24). An eloquent answer to the propaganda was given on the Senate floor:
81
To suggest that one is unpatriotic simply because one is affiliated with a certain
party and may oppose a war that may have horrendous consequences is
irresponsible—irresponsible (Senator Byrd 2002.09.25).73
The most manipulative and discussion-hostile example of this strategy was
uttered by Attorney General John Ashcroft. He accused the opposition of running
errands for the enemy, exposing the country to danger and eroding the national unity:
To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty; my message is
this: Your tactics only aid terrorists – for they erode our national unity and diminish
our resolve. They give ammunition to America’s enemies (Ashcroft 2001.12.06).74
The introduction of the Patriot Act also had interesting propagandistic
implications. The Patriot Act label is a straightforward instance of glittering
generality. In the wake of 9/11 the word “patriot” increased its position as an
extremely desirable disposition, and who else than “un-patriotic” people could
oppose “the Patriot Act”?75. At first, few dared to speak up against it, even though
some would argue that it involved intrusive surveillance and unjust detention.
The way the Bush administration spread information about terrorist threats
served a dual purpose. There was a need for a “system to provide a comprehensive
and effective means to disseminate information regarding the risk of terrorist acts.”
(HSPD 2002). What is evident, however, is that the Bush administration did this in a
manner that would create fear among Americans. The result was a crossfire of fear.
One example is the introduction of the colourful “Homeland Security
Advisory System”, which indicates the varying threat levels towards the USA76
(Appendix III). The messages conveyed through this system have a double effect
since they simultaneously create fear of terror attacks among the public, while
informing the public of genuine threats. The Bush administration was conscious of
taking advantage of this double effect for propagandistic purposes (Norris et al.
2003:283).
73
Available from: http://www.uscg.mil/legal/Homeland_legislation/Text/092502%20Homeland%20Security.txt
Available from: http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/testimony/2001/1206transcriptsenatejudiciarycommittee.htm This is a
statement that caused considerable outrage in liberal circles. See Franken (2003:160) for a satirical analysis of it.
75
The same pattern occurred when other laws dealing with security were introduced, for instance the Homeland Security
Act (Clarke 2004:250).
76
It is interesting that US authorities argue that: “This system is intended to create a common vocabulary, context, and
structure for an ongoing national discussion about the nature of the threats” (HSPD 2002). It is evident that there will be no
discussion as the threat levels based on classified intelligence are of course set without any open discussion.
74
82
5.2.4 Preventive, not pre-emptive
The introduction of the doctrine of pre-emption is an aspect of the propaganda
campaign that has been a massive name calling success for the Bush administration.
The term pre-emption is misplaced here: what was introduced was in fact a doctrine
of prevention.77 The concept was first mentioned by Bush at West Point Academy.
He said that all Americans must “be ready for preemptive action when necessary”
(Bush 2002.06.01), but it became a hallmark of his administration’s foreign policy
through the National Security Strategy (NSS 2002), released in September 2002.
The distinction between pre-emptive and preventive war is important, as
preventive warfare is a violation of international law, and is also condemned in just
war theory. It is “an attack that responds to a distant danger, a matter of foresight and
free choice” (Walzer 1977:75). The following two quotes show that labelling the war
in Iraq as “pre-emption” is inaccurate, due to the deficiencies of intelligence and the
lack of imminence.
Prevention provides a means of confronting factors that are likely to contribute to
the development of a threat before it has had the chance to become
imminent. (Freedman 2003:106).
Preemptive war takes place at some point between the moment when an
enemy decides to attack – or, more precisely, is perceived to be about to attack –
and when the attack is actually launched. (Freedman 2003:106).
In order to wage a pre-emptive war, a state must have “a reliable intelligence
system, to ensure adequate warning of attack” (Freedman 1989:126). The intelligence
of most importance to this study concerns Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).
David Kay, in charge of the post-war search for WMD in Iraq, put this intelligence in
a critical light when he said of Iraqi WMD capabilities: “We were all wrong”. Kay’s
usage of the word “all” refers to the intelligence services of nations who opposed the
war (e.g. France), as well as those supporting the war in Iraq.78
77
Lawrence Freedman writes: “If the United States attacks facilities and overthrows regimes before these dangers have had
a chance to emerge, such action will be described as preemption because that is the language currently in vogue, but this
language would be incorrect” (Freedman 2003:113). The same view is also supported by Tucker & Hendrickson (2004:26)
and Kegley Jr. & Raymond (2004:41).
78
It should be noted that he also said that Saddam Hussein was in breach of UNSC Resolution 1441, which should lead to
serious consequences from the Security Council. See UNSC (2002).
83
It is of secondary importance whether others shared the same false perceptions
of Iraq as the USA, and whether Saddam Hussein failed to comply satisfactorily with
Res. 1441. The crucial point here is that the intelligence required to legitimize the
pre-emptive war was insufficient. Collective misperceptions and “group-think” do
not add weight to the real evidence and intelligence to be considered (Freedman
2004:25). This intelligence deficiency indicates that the war was preventive and not
pre-emptive. Yet, the most powerful argument for such a classification concerns
imminence:
Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have
terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before
they strike? (Bush SotU, 2003)
The Bush administration never described the threat from Iraq as imminent.
Had it done so convincingly – and with persuasive documentation – this could have
added legitimacy to the war in Iraq (Tucker & Hendrickson 2004:30). What the
administration did do was to use language such as ‘real’, ‘gathering’ ‘grave’,
‘emerging’ and even “of unique urgency” (Bush 2002.10.02.). This is probably
because the administration did not believe the threat to be imminent. This lack of
imminence effectively removes the war from pre-emptive to preventive. A rhetorical
question Colin Powell posed in his presentation to the UN Security Council clearly
suggests that what was about to begin was a preventive war:
Should we take the risk that he will not some day use these weapons at a time and
the place and in the manner of his choosing at a time when the world is in a much
weaker position to respond? (Powell 2003.02.05).
5.2.5 Smoking guns and mushroom clouds
We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud. (Rice 2002.09.08)
We cannot wait for the final proof – the smoking gun –- that could come in the form
of a mushroom cloud. (Bush 2002.10.08)
The horror image of the mushroom cloud was echoed by Bush exactly one month
after Rice introduced it in the propaganda campaign. Although not among the most
frequently recurring themes, it is perhaps the most clearly manipulative of all the
propagandistic statements made by the Bush administration. It involves excessive use
84
of fear appeals, as there can be few words with more fear-inciting connotations than
the image of a “mushroom cloud”. The mere mention is a massive attempt at scaring
the audience into agreeing with whatever security measures the Bush administration
wanted to utilize. The hyping of Iraq’s nuclear threat that these statements represent
is in fact quite deceptive.
When preparing for war in Iraq, “worst-case analysis had suddenly gained a
new credibility” (Freedman 2004:16). The chances of a nuclear attack from Iraq can
in hindsight at best be deemed extremely unlikely. The “mushroom-cloud” metaphor
resembles what one might expect to find in a military psyops, and it is therefore
hardly surprising that top members of the military (Tommy Franks 2002.11.12) also
used it (Gellman & Pincus 2003:7). The Bush administration was exploiting the
principles of sincere speech as its statements were not relevant to the real threat
situation. The image of the “mushroom cloud” disappeared from official statements,
but “smoking-gun evidence” was frequently referred to as the war in Iraq came
closer.
It should also be noted that Condoleezza Rice has displayed an ability to use
very powerful and often visual imagery in her propagandistic statements. We find this
same quality in her words telling those who did not think that what was going on was
a war on terrorism to “just look at ground zero” (see section 5.1.1).
5.3 War with Iraq
The link was reinforced by placing the campaign against Iraq firmly under the
heading of the ‘war on terror’, as well as by constant insistence that Iraq and alQaeda were connected (Freedman 2004:20).
This section deals with a longer period than the two previous sections. In this period
the public opinion for the war on terrorism really started slip (Kull 2004:40). If a
propagandist has problems getting the message through, he may try harder and
propagandize more forcefully and controversially. On the whole, the propaganda of
this period increasingly had more of a “grey” tint compared to the “white”
propaganda examined in sections 5.1 and 5.2.
85
Compared to the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan was an easy “sell”.79
Critics abroad – most prominently France and Germany – argued that there was no
casus belli for invading Iraq, and that the UN weapons inspectors under the
leadership of Hans Blix should be given more time.80 Critics at home argued that
going to war against Iraq would overstretch the US military and make the USA lose
momentum in the war on terrorism.
As the war was approaching there was much debate whether a war in Iraq
would be a part of the war on terrorism, or just a good opportunity to get rid of the
inarguably malign Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. However, as the war in Iraq
evolved there was no question that it became a front in the war on terrorism, because
foreign fighters and terrorists entered into Iraq to fight the coalition forces.
Two of the main pillars of the rationale for invading Iraq were largely
discredited and proven inaccurate: the links between Iraq and al Qaeda, and Iraq’s
possession of WMD. The US intelligence services were criticized by the House of
Representatives Intelligence Committee “for using largely outdated, circumstantial
and fragmentary information with too many uncertainties to conclude that Iraq had
weapons of mass destruction and ties to al Qaeda” (Priest 2003). It seems clear that
the Bush administration was “cherry-picking” intelligence about WMD and Iraq.
Such selective interpretation of intelligence undermines the requirement of good
intelligence – that it border on the crystal-clear – in order to wage a legitimate preemptive war.
79
Paul Wolfowitz’s comment in an interview with Vanity Fair in May 2003 indicates internal debates on how to “sell” the
war in Iraq:”we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core
reason” (Wolfowitz 2003.09.05). Similar statements have also been attributed to Condoleezza Rice, who has been reported
as saying that only the WMD rationale had legs (Woodward 2004:220) (Freedman 2004:26).
80
A major issue within the Bush administration was whether or not to seek UN approval. There are numerous accounts of
Powell warning against going to war against Iraq without a UN mandate. (Woodward 2004). This study has not examined
the role of Chief Weapons Inspector Hans Blix. Part of the reason for not including a propaganda strategy based on
testimonial from Blix is that the Bush administration has to some extent vacillated between supporting and discrediting his
statements.
86
5.3.1 al Qaeda is Iraq
Transfer is one of the devices most frequently employed in the Bush administration’s
propaganda campaign. Transfers have been identified by many journalists and
scholars, but have rarely been called by their proper name. The application of
transfers was crucial in defining the second target of the war on terrorism. The Bush
administration tried to “contaminate” its next main enemy with the established
horrific connotations and representations of al Qaeda and the Taliban. “The aim was
not to prove an assertion but to conflate Iraq with al Qaeda any way possible” (Corn
2003:218). The following table shows the entities involved in this quite extensive
transfer:
Table 5.1:
First phase
Second phase
War on terrorism
War in Iraq
Osama bin Laden
Saddam Hussein
Afghanistan
Iraq
Taliban
Baath Party
al Qaeda, terrorism
Iraq as a terrorist state
Response to attack
Pre-emptive (preventive) warfare
The propaganda of the initial stages of the war on terrorism had successfully
singled out everything in the left column as legitimate targets or courses of action.
There was only minor criticism, both domestically and abroad, of the first phase in
Afghanistan. Now it was imperative that the new set of actors and the new stage
should receive a similar status. Repetitive use of Transfer was therefore a natural
choice of propaganda device. Judith Yaphe, a CIA analyst for 20 years, put it
brilliantly when she said: “You’re left to just hear the nouns, and put them together”
(Corn 2003:234).
This way of thinking is very much in accordance with the tenets of schema
theory (see section 3.1.2). Selling the war in Iraq and forging public support for it
87
could be facilitated by the existing schemata that the left column of table 5.1 lists.
Cognitive dissonance also enters into this because Americans had overwhelmingly
supported the war in Afghanistan, and some Americans felt compelled to continue
their support. They had already fully embraced the ideology and mind-set of the
propaganda campaign, so breaking with it, all of a sudden, would be difficult.
This attempt to link together these separate phenomena was highly systematic,
yet only partly successful. It worked fairly well for Americans, but other audiences
were more reluctant to accept the transfer. Many people, both inside and outside the
borders of the USA, started to question whether Iraq was really a part of the war on
terrorism. In Chapter 6, we will pay special attention to the effect of this transfer. A
fiercely debated and interesting aspect of this transfer was related to the alleged
meeting of one of the key 9/11 culprits, Mohammad Atta, with members of the Iraqi
intelligence community.81
Other statements contributing to this comprehensive transfer are:
[Iraq] has aided, trained and harbored terrorists, including operatives of al Qaeda.
(Bush 2003.03.17)
He’s a threat because he is dealing with al Qaeda. (Bush 2002.11.07)
We know that he has a long-standing relationship with various terrorist groups,
including the al-Qaeda organization. (Cheney 2003.03.16)
As we fight the war on terror in Iraq and on other fronts... (Bush 2004.06.02)
These and other statements resulted in headlines like “Rumsfeld Says US Has
‘Bulletproof’ Evidence of Iraq’s Links to Al Qaeda” (Schmitt 2002). Newspapers got
the message, and the American public got the message. “Simply by mentioning Iraq
and Al Qaeda together in the same sentence, over and over, the message got
through” (Rampton & Stauber 2003:96). Was there really any terrorism to worry
about from Iraq? Clarke (2004:231) provides a pre 9/11 quote from deputy CIA
Director McLaughlin: “We have no evidence of any active Iraqi terrorist threat
against the US.”
81
“The Atta-in-Prague story acquired solidity in the minds of the public through sheer repetition.” (Rampton & Stauber
2003: 96). Cheney and Wolfowitz were the administration officials most frequently citing this: Cheney asserted that:
“Mohamed Atta, who was the lead hijacker, did apparently travel to Prague on a number of occasions. And on at least one
occasion, we have reporting that places him in Prague with a senior Iraqi intelligence official” (Cheney 2002.09.08).
88
5.3.2 Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)
Looking back on the three first years of the war on terrorism after 9/11, we note that
one issue stands out as the most debated, most controversial and most discredited
aspect of the propaganda campaign: the alleged Weapons of Mass Destruction in
Iraq.82 In the build-up to the war in Iraq there were few – if any – topics that members
of the Bush administration were more eager to speak about than Iraq and its alleged
WMDs.
In fact, large stocks of such weapons did not exist in Iraq. This propaganda
strategy must be considered to belong in the realm of “grey” propaganda since the
information in it was clearly inaccurate.83 The whole cast of Bush administration
officials participated in this fallacy of impossible certainty. On the eve of the battle
against Iraq the following statements were made:
Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq
regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever
devised. (Bush 2003.03.17)
It is not too late for the Iraqi military to act with honor and protect your country by
permitting the peaceful entry of coalition forces to eliminate weapons of mass
destruction. (Bush 2003.03.17)
The inaccuracies reverberated. Phrases like “no doubt” and “no debate” are
designed to short-circuit any further discussion. Such statements also express a very
high level of certainty. The whole Bush administration kept on repeating the
inaccurate allegations that Iraq possessed WMDs. Below are four more examples of
this propaganda strategy, uttered by all three members of the second highest level of
the propaganda organization (as defined in section 4.3). Few other propaganda
strategies were as forcefully disseminated by the principals. The first statement is a
plain lie about where WMD was being kept:
82
The well-established misleading label ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’ is a propaganda gift from above for the Bush
administration. This simplifying label is widely used by politicians and scholars, and it ruins our ability “to distinguish
between systems that cause containable tragedies to those that would lead to the most unimaginable catastrophe”
(Freedman 2004:40). Nuclear weapons are the real weapons of mass destruction. (Bremer Mærli 2003).
83
This was written in black and white and published on the web pages of the CIA. The so-called Duelfer Report states:
“Sadam Husayn ended the nuclear program in 1991 following the Gulf war. ISG found no evidence to suggest concerted
efforts to restart the program” (Iraq Survey Group 2004). Rampton & Stauber (2003:86) spotted this earlier.
89
We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east,
west, south and north somewhat. (Rumsfeld 2003.03.30)
Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass
destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends,
against our allies, and against us. (Cheney 2002.08.26)
We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass
destruction; he’s determined to make more (Powell 2003.02.05).
There’s no debate in the world as to whether they have those weapons. There’s no
debate in the world as to whether they're continuing to develop and acquire them
[...] We all know that. A trained ape knows that. All you have to do is read the
newspaper. (Rumsfeld 2002.09.13).84
Even trained apes can make mistakes, but the Bush administration only partly
conceded that significant amounts of WMD were not found. Instead, the blame was
largely pushed over to the intelligence community. By contrast, Britain’s Prime
Minister Tony Blair went much further in admitting and apologizing for the
inaccuracies:
The evidence about Saddam having actual biological and chemical weapons, as
opposed to the capability to develop them, has turned out to be wrong. I
acknowledge that and accept it (Tony Blair 2004.09.28).85
The closest thing to an official US apology for previous inaccuracies and
unfounded certainty was this statement: “Iraq did not have the weapons that our
intelligence believed were there” (Bush 2004.10.07). This statement was
subsequently referred to when reporters called for further apologies and admitting of
responsibility.86
Two final points must be made about the WMD-related propaganda. Firstly,
there was a great debate about aluminium tubes that Iraq was allegedly trying to make
into centrifuges necessary for enrichment of uranium. This was predominantly a
sophisticated technical debate, but it appears that the Bush administration stretched
the truth by ignoring expert statements that stressed the dual use of such tubes.87
84
This quite sensational quote can be found on the homepages of Rumsfeld’s DoD:
http://www.dod.mil/transcripts/2002/t09162002_t913bbcvoa.html. See also Corn (2003:211) for further documentation.
85
Available from: http://www.labour.org.uk/ac2004news?ux_news_id=ac04tb
86
The “apology” can be found at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/10/20041007-6.html. Powell admitted to
the Washington Post: “The absence of a stockpile changes the political calculus. It changes the answer you get” (Kessler
2004). However, Powell quickly corrected himself and added that he still backed the decision to invade Iraq.
87
This is the case made by Gellman & Pincus (2003) in their excellent article on the Bush administration’s pre-war
depictions of Iraq’s nuclear capabilities. See also Fritz et al. (2004:160–167).
90
Another interesting matter is how the phrase “weapons of mass destruction”
was gradually downgraded and replaced by similar phrases. The Bush administration
started to intertwine “programs” and “intentions” with “actual weapons”. The
strategic misuse of language and nuance elimination became very clear when White
House spokesman Ari Fleischer said: “when the President talked about weapons of
mass destruction programs, he includes weapons of mass destruction in that” (Fritz et
al. 2004:195). This pattern of rewriting and euphemism culminated in a directly
ludicrous statement in the 2004 State of the Union address, where Bush spoke of
“Weapons of mass destruction-related program activities” (Bush 2004.01.20).
5.3.3 Saddam captured “Like a Rat”
“Saddam Captured 'Like a Rat' in Raid.” (Foxnews 2003).
This headline from Foxnews following the capture of Saddam Hussein clearly
illuminates the media war and the propaganda of the Bush administration.88 Similar
phrases also appeared in the headlines of CNN, NBC and BBC. CNN’s read:
“Saddam ‘caught like a rat’ in a hole.” (CNN 2003b). The highly negative ‘rat’ simile
was uttered by Maj. Gen. Ray Odierno of the 4th Infantry Division at a press
conference in Tikrit. It completes a coherent propaganda strategy that can be traced
back to the initial stages of the war on terrorism. This is indeed name calling aimed
at de-humanizing the enemy. Consider the hunting connotations and dehumanising
quality of the following statements:
This is a threat that is out there and that will strike again if we don't take the
necessary measures to root it out, to draw them out of their holes. (Rice 2001.09.19)
We are determined to run this to the ground, get them out of their holes (Powell
2001.09.16)
To hunt down, to find, to smoke out of their holes (Bush 2001.09.16)
Thousands of very skilled and determined military personnel are on the manhunt,
going after the remaining killers who hide in cities and caves (Bush SotU 2004)
88
The champagne was bubbling in some of the live studios of Fox News Channel when Saddam was captured.
91
This is a highly loaded way of referring to the enemy – it sounds as if what is
being chased is vermin, like a rat, or some unnamed animal that lurks in dirty holes or
caves. This propaganda strategy also has a very distinct visual aspect to it. The
pictures of Saddam Hussein being drawn out of his hole and having his teeth checked
like a routine veterinary procedure fitted perfectly into this picture. (Appendix III)
Soldiers in the field use this kind of terminology. In the battlefield, war is
indeed about rooting deadly enemies out of their “foxholes” and capturing or killing
them. The interesting point is that this sort of talk has been systematically
disseminated by the Bush administration, and that also the media willingly accepted
such a news frame for referring to the adversaries in the war on terrorism and the war
in Iraq.
This name calling was systematic. Bush put all the pieces together in an
interview with Diane Sawyer of ABC News shortly after Saddam Hussein was
captured. When asked if he would like to see Saddam, Bush replied: “No – I’ve seen
him. I’ve seen enough of him. I saw him getting deloused and after being pulled out a
rat hole” (Bush 2003.12.06).
5.3.4 Greeted as liberators
We will in fact be greeted as liberators (Cheney 2003.03.16)
Opposition to war can be subdued by playing up threats, but also by giving overoptimistic prospects of easy victory. This was done by several administration officials
in the build-up to the war in Iraq, and as the very difficult reconstruction of Iraq was
about to begin (Freedman 2004:34–36). With both Shiite and Sunni insurgency
rocking Iraqi society, it became evident that US troops were increasingly perceived as
occupiers rather than liberators. Jim Lehrer of the PBS Newshour noted, “The word
occupation [...] was never mentioned in the run-up to the war. It was liberation”
(Mermin 2004:67).
Paul Wolfowitz played a crucial role in this propaganda strategy. He accused
experienced generals’ estimates of required troop levels of being too high, and
declared he was reasonably certain that US troops would be greeted as liberators.
92
Moreover, he claimed that Iraq had a lot of the resources and funds to pay for its own
reconstruction. Wolfowitz said “[t]he notion that it will take several hundred
thousand US troops to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq, are wildly off the mark”
(Wolfowitz 2003.02.27) These were instances of card stacking and wishful thinking.
This strategy may have a boomerang effect if it becomes apparent that it has
been employed. It is fair to say that Iraq as of spring 2005 is a society that feels the
strains of occupation and is not only a rejoicing liberated nation. Interestingly, the
height from which this kind of propaganda strategies may fall was devastatingly
experienced by US authorities during the Vietnam War. Caroline Page writes:
Playing down the prospects of massive sacrifice and loss of human life is a
dangerous enterprise to launch upon. Such euphemism represents a potential
propaganda set-back as was clearly shown during the Vietnam War
(Page 1996:304).
5.3.5 America is a more secure country, the world is better off
As it became evident that the intelligence that had indicated large WMD stocks in
Iraq was faulty, the pattern was that George W. Bush discussed the actual topic only
reluctantly when journalists raised it. When asked about WMD, the Bush
administration’s answers would redirect the focus to other matters such as security or
mass graves (Freedman 2004:37). In this phase the propaganda device implacatures
was systematically used.
Characteristic of the use of implacatures is to refuse to answer a question and
imply answers instead. A normal reason for this is that the hard facts contradict the
answer one ideally would like to provide to the person asking the question. Appendix
IV provides a conspicuous instance of this. The vigilant reporter Diane Sawyer is
doing her job and will not let the President off easy when he uses implacatures to
avoid answering her questions. Each time, Bush repeats the same utilitarian
argument, stating that he has made “America a more secure country” and “the world
is better off.” Finally, after asking six or seven questions regarding faulty intelligence
and lack of WMDs in Iraq, she gives up.
93
The implacatures really come to the surface towards the end when Bush twice
states: “you can keep asking the question”. No substantial answer to the question was
provided. When Sawyer asks: “What would it take to convince you?”, the answer:
“America is a safer country” is clearly an attempt to sidestep the important issue that
no WMD were found in Iraq.
An interesting point regarding this strategy is that Bush communicates a
consequentialist and quite utilitarian view of ethics. The difference between
consequentialism and deontology is among the most fundamental divides within the
philosophical discipline of ethics. Consequentialism implies that “whether an act is
morally right depends only on the consequences of that act” (Sinnott-Armstrong
2003) – or, as the proverb has it “All’s well that ends well.”
Consequentialism stands in contrast to the rule of law regime the United
Nations strives to enforce internationally. “If behaviour is judged only by its results,
no action is inherently wrong” (Malnes 1994:15). Following Iraq, the authority of the
UN has been diminished, and the reliance on norms and rules to guide states in their
actions on the international scene may suffer badly. 89 It is increasingly hard to know
what is the rule and what is the exception for military intervention that disregards the
principle of sovereignty in the 21st century.
5.4 Broader pattern of the special techniques
Many propaganda strategies have been accounted for here, but further analysis would
probably find additional strategies. The earliest strategies focused on providing a
vocabulary and framework for all audiences to understand the war terrorism in. It had
to be established that this was in fact “war”, and people had to be persuaded that it
was possible to fight a war against the phenomenon of terrorism. Name calling and
fear appeals were important propaganda devices at the outset.
89
See also Kegley Jr. & Raymond (2004:45) who juxtapose and contrast the war on terrorism, and a doctrine of prevention
to Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative. Preventive warfare is completely incompatible with the deontological ethics of
Kant. Chaos and war would reign if the maxim of preventive warfare were made universal.
94
Shortly after this, it was made clear that non-cooperation in the war on
terrorism would not be tolerated. This was achieved by diplomatic pressure, but also
by employing propaganda strategies founded on nuance elimination. This
propaganda provided fixed answers to the question of who was a terrorist and who
was not.
The white propaganda of the early phases of the war on terrorism contained
threats such as: “We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed
these acts and those who harbor them”. Moreover, the Bush administration used
nuance elimination in order to force the states of the world into two categories: the
good guys (friendly states) and the bad guys (friendly states). This forced some
potentially hostile states into the category of friendly states. The desired behaviour is
easy to spot. Those states that did not wish to contribute in the war on terrorism
could find themselves on the opposite side of the conflict. There was also a clear
strategy to convince friend and foe alike as to which side in the conflict would
eventually prevail.
The foundation of the first phase of the propaganda campaign was used for the
introduction of the Axis of Evil metaphor. The goals of the propaganda campaign in
the second phase were to portray Iraq as a rogue state approaching nuclear status, and
to legitimize the concept of prevention through an alleged doctrine of pre-emption. It
was a daring move for the Bush administration to specify more clearly what it wanted
the next phases of the war on terrorism to constitute.
Fear appeals are among the most omnipresent devices throughout the
propaganda campaign. “Smoking guns and mushroom clouds” is perhaps the most
cunning and deceptive propaganda strategy found in this study. The shift from white
to more grey propaganda was noticeable from the autumn of 2002. Fear appeals
played an increasingly important role. This is quite natural because terrorism (as
defined in 3.1.1) has the spread of fear as an important goal. The result is an awkward
situation where the terrorists and the Bush administration both contribute to, and
benefit from, fear among Americans. The Bush administration needed people to fear
terrorism so that they would support the forceful response it deemed necessary.
95
Through transfers and fallacies of impossible certainty the Bush
administration has attempted to short-circuit any debate and make the road to war
with Iraq ostensibly inevitable. The information on WMD was wrong, and the links
to al Qaeda were faint at best, so the war was fought for the wrong reasons.90 There
were plenty of reasons for keeping these two phenomena apart, but at the same time
the well-established notions from the first phase of the war on terrorism were a
tempting set of perceptions and representations to exploit through transfers.
The fallacy of impossible certainty surrounding the Bush administration’s
handling of Iraq has had a boomerang effect on the credibility of the Bush
administration. Further damage has been inflicted by the lack of sufficient apologies
and responsibility taking. The Bush administration has chosen to throw the hot potato
into the hands of the intelligence community, and reply to critics with implacatures.
Today it is evident that the war in Iraq was a gigantic intelligence failure – but it may
turn into a gigantic propaganda and credibility failure as well.
90
Some would argue differently. The editors of the neo-conservative magazine The Weekly Standard argue quite the
opposite in their article titled: “The Right War for the Right Reasons” (Kagan & Kristol 2004). However, “the war was
widely denounced even when it was assumed that the intelligence claims were largely correct. (Freedman 2004:8).
96
6. Counterpropaganda, reactions and effects
Having looked at the Bush administration’s propaganda strategies and devices, let us
now involve a few other actors in the analysis. In this chapter, important sources of
counterpropaganda will be considered. Counterpropaganda from abroad and
propaganda from within the United states will be examined separately, as will the
counterpropagandistic potential of deeds and statements by US officials. Likewise,
the main divide in the section assessing the effects of the propaganda campaign will
be domestic vs. abroad.
The measuring of effect will to a large degree rely on opinion polls. Chapter 5
was structured around the various propaganda strategies and their devices. Here the
effects will be discussed with a clearer focus on the audiences, examining how
Europeans, Americans and Muslims reacted to the propaganda.
6.1 Counterpropaganda
There was not much counterpropaganda present when the war on terrorism started.
The Bush administration had full access to the media, and the only dissonant voices
were extreme left-wingers. At that time it was generally considered treacherous and
unpatriotic for Americans to criticise, and/or be opposed to legislation put forward by
the Bush administration. One might say that the goal of choking counterpropaganda
(See section 4.1) was to a great extent achieved in the initial stages of Bush’s war on
terrorism.
The situation changed as the war on terrorism continued. Both foreign and
domestic counterpropaganda was steadily increasing. However, opponents of the
Bush administration were at a disadvantage as regards media access and propaganda
organization. This has had some interesting effects. One of them is that the Bush
administration itself became one of the most potent sources of “counterpropaganda”,
or more precisely, of incidents with a detrimental effect on the propaganda campaign.
97
A full analysis of the propaganda efforts of all the Bush administration’s
adversaries and opponents is not the object of this study. What will be done in
sections 6.1.2 and 6.1.3 is therefore to examine a few of the most striking examples
of such counterpropaganda. It is natural to devote attention to al Qaeda and its leader
Osama bin Laden, since he is the most prominent adversary of the USA in the war on
terrorism. Three of his “speeches”, or official statements, have been examined for this
study. Most attention will of course be given to his “October Surprise” speech, which
was handed to the news media just before the 2004 Presidential election. 91
In addition, the domestic scene will be covered by examining the
counterpropaganda of filmmaker Michael Moore and the newspaper The New York
Times.92 But first, a look at incidents with a counterpropagandistic potential –
incidents for which the Bush administration itself has been directly or indirectly
responsible: the War in Iraq, the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the notion of a
“crusade” against terrorism.
6.1.1 Own goals undermining the propaganda strategy
The damage done to this country by its own misconduct in the last few months and
years, to its very heart and soul, is far greater and longer lasting than any damage
that any terrorist could possibly inflict upon us. (Sorensen 2004.)
The above quote from Ted Sorensen, political advisor to President John F. Kennedy,
came in reaction to the prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. This
incident had a negative impact on the effect of the Bush administration’s propaganda
campaign. Bush appeared on al Arabiya news channel to try to counter the effect, but
failed to make a complete apology, which was received badly in the Middle East.
Instead, he offered arguments like: “It’s very important for the people of the Middle
East to realize that the troops we have overseas are decent, honourable citizens who
care about freedom and peace” (Bush 2004.05.05).
91
The full text of the speech is included in appendix V. There are different transcripts of it. al Jazeera’s version will be
used here.
92
Using editorials as examples of alternative viewpoints, thus countering the administration’s propaganda, proved a viable
approach in Page’s (1996:302) analysis of US propaganda in the Vietnam War. However, news commentary by journalists
must not be mistaken for audience reactions (Jowett & O’Donnell 1999:327). Journalists are not “the public”.
98
The
pictures
from
Abu
Ghraib
were
in
a
sense,
the
strongest
counterpropaganda imaginable to the dead-level abstractions (see section 5.2.2) of
the Bush administration. No matter what Bush said on al Arabiya, those pictures do
not bear the hallmark of a nation focused on freedom, humanity, democracy and
liberty. ( See Appendix III). As Craig R. Whitney writes in the introduction of The
Abu Ghraib Investigations: “These were not enemy propaganda pictures; these
showed real atrocities actually inflicted by Americans” (Strasser 2004:vii).
The impact that the war in Iraq per se had on the propaganda campaign was a
headache for the Bush administration. The military campaign triggered increased
animosity and anger in a part of the world where America’s standing was already at
disturbingly low levels. After the invasion of Iraq came the rise of a large number of
hitherto little-known extremists groups – The Black Banner, Ansar al Sunna, Khaled
bin al-Waleed corps, the Green Brigade and the group Tawhid and Jihad (Davis
2004). Clarke is very clear on the propagandistic value of the war in Iraq:
We delivered to al Qaeda the greatest recruitment propaganda imaginable. (Clarke
2004:264) [furthermore] We invaded Iraq and gave al Qaeda exactly the
propaganda fuel it needed. (Clarke 2004:273) 93
The conclusions of the Independent Panel given the task of investigating Abu
Ghraib serve well to sum up the effect it has had on prospects for international
support for the war on terrorism:
The damage these incidents have done to U.S. policy, to the image of the U.S. among
populations whose support we need in the Global War on Terror and to the moral of
our armed forces, must not be repeated (Strasser 2004:xxii)
A final incident to be mentioned on “own goals”occurred less than a week
after 9/11. This was a slip of the tongue by President Bush that in fact echoed al
Qaeda’s own propaganda. It was exactly what the Jihadist enemies of the USA
wanted Bush to say: “This crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a while”
(Bush 2001.09.16). If the war on terrorism is indeed perceived as a crusade in the
Middle East, there can be no doubt that it will take a while.
93
Clarke is a well-informed career bureaucrat. However, it should be noted that he is alleged to have quit his Washington
career over controversies surrounding the war in Iraq. He may partly be setting old scores through such statements.
99
6.1.2 Counterpropaganda from abroad: Bin Laden statements
al Qaeda, the enemy that attacked us, was engaged in its own highly successful
propaganda campaign to influence millions of Muslims to act against America
(Clarke 2004:245).
The frequent use of the word ‘crusade’ in al Qaeda propaganda reveals what
sort of struggle its members perceive themselves to be in: a religious struggle in
which the people of Islam must vanquish or convert disbelievers and crusader
infidels. The first fatwa issued by bin Laden in 1996 was titled: Declaration of War
Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places (Benjamin &
Simon 2002:140).
The word crusade/crusader appears seven times in bin Laden’s statement of
11 February 2003. This is the terminology of Jihadists, and underlines the extremely
unfortunate effect of Bush’s “crusade” slip of the tongue. It crystallized the
perception among extremist Muslims that: “This crusade war is primarily targeted
against the people of Islam” (bin Laden 2003).
Osama bin Laden has also touched on other parts of the Bush administration’s
speeches. The phrase: “America is more secure” is addressed through the statement:
“Security is a pressing necessity for all mankind. We do not agree that you should
monopolize it only for yourselves” (bin Laden 2004b), accusing the Bush
administration of being preoccupied solely with its own security, while ignoring the
security of others.
Bin Laden has increasingly started to engage the arguments of the Bush
administration. The speech delivered right before the US Presidential election in 2004
illustrated this. At the beginning of that video he stated: “People of America this talk
of mine is for you” (bin Laden 2004a). He also asks: “Is defending oneself and
punishing the aggressor in kind, objectionable terrorism? If it is such, then it is
unavoidable for us” (bin Laden 2004a). This is a more solemn moral plea than talk of
war, hate, murder and revenge.
Bin Laden uses wit, sarcasm and a reference frame with which both Americans
and Europeans are well acquainted. He forcefully engages the postulates of Bush’s
statements and reasons in a comprehensible way. He tries to “steal” some of the
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words that are the ideological indicators of the Bush administration. Thus, bin Laden
is actively engaged in the “Battle of Words”. In the following, we can note
reverberations of some of the crucial high-level abstractions identified in section
5.2.2: “security”, “humanity”, “free men” and “freedom”:
Before I begin, I say to you that security is an indispensable pillar of human life and
that free men do not forfeit their security, contrary to Bush’s claim that we hate
freedom (bin Laden 2004a).94
This video is perhaps the most effective counterpropaganda to emerge from al
Qaeda. The timing (right before the 2004 Presidential election) made bin Laden look
like a player in the election itself. Hinting towards mechanisms and notions of
security, the most famous excerpt of this speech is perhaps this passage from the very
end:
I tell you in truth, that your security is not in the hands of Kerry, nor Bush, nor alQaida. No. Your security is in your own hands (bin Laden 2004).
6.1.3 Domestic counterpropaganda: Michael Moore and the NYT
The filmmaker Michael Moore has become a figurehead for anti-Bush propaganda.
He is not so much operating on his own, as he is fronting what takes the shape of a
liberal movement lashing out at the Bush administration in a vitriolic way.95
Propaganda bearing his signature includes books, statements – and above all the film
Fahrenheit 9/11, where Moore takes on elements of the Bush administration’s
propaganda campaign and seeks to counter them actively.
Michael Moore has used his fame for political purposes. He started denigrating
Bush massively from the very day Bush was elected. In his bestseller Stupid White
Men, he portrayed Bush as “a threat to our national security” (Moore 2001:37). His
name calling includes labelling President Bush “The Thief-in-Chief” (Moore
2001:2).
94
Bush has repeatedly accused al Qaeda of hating freedom. One instance was on al Arabiya television: “al Qaeda looks for
any excuse. But the truth of the matter is, they hate us, and they hate freedom, and they hate people who embrace
freedom.” (Bush 2004.05.05).
95
Al Franken (2003) is another prominent figure in this satirical anti-Bush movement.
101
Moore’s films must be seen as political activism rather than as documentaries
in the traditional sense. What is certain – as well as surprising – is that these
documentaries have become widely popular blockbusters, and no “anti-Bush liberal”
would pass up the chance to see Fahrenheit 9/11. His defining moment as a political
force in contemporary America was perhaps the Academy Awards ceremony in
March 2003, where he was awarded an Oscar for his documentary Bowling for
Columbine.
The final part of his Oscars “thank you” speech (See appendix VI) was a
clever way of seizing the opportunity while the TV cameras were rolling. Moore
called Bush “a fictitious president sending us to war for fictitious reasons”. Emotions
were high and the crowd was divided between people booing and people applauding.
Moore ended his appearance with exclaiming: “Shame on you, Mr Bush, shame on
you.” To politicise the 75th Academy Awards is quite an accomplishment: this was
mass communication at its most effective.
A quite different source of domestic counterpropaganda is the newspaper The
New York Times (NYT). The “newspaper of record” has been an arena for “anti-Bush
propaganda” in the American media world. Three aspects of this will be commented
upon here: editorials, external contributors and the regular columnist Maureen Dowd.
Maureen Dowd has offered scathing criticism of the Bush administration.
Vice President Cheney, whom she labels “Terrifier in Chief” (Dowd 2004a),
frequently appears on the receiving end. Dowd is paid by the NYT to write her Opeds, and she has been a key contributor to making the NYT into a
counterpropagandistic news channel.96 Her counterpropagandistic legacy includes the
following:
The war was based on phoney W.M.D. analyses and fallacious welcome scenarios
drummed up by the neocon Chihuahua Ahmad Chalabi. ... The invasion of Iraq was
‘a Christmas gift’ to Osama (Dowd 2004c).
The war in Iraq started with lies – that Saddam’s W.M.D. were endangering our
security and that Saddam was linked to Al Qaeda and 9/11. (Dowd 2004b)
96
Columnist William Safire serves as an administration-loyal alibi for the NYT. He smoothens this out only somewhat.
102
Most of Dowd’s counterpropaganda has the objective of rebutting the content
– or truth – postulated in the Bush administration’s propaganda. Propaganda devices
such as name calling and fear appeals can be recognized in Dowd’s writing. Both
these devices are at work in the following quote: “The vice-president and his
‘Gestapo-office’ of Pentagon neocons” (Dowd 2004d). One of the most vicious and
propagandistic twists of her writing provides a counter to the Saddam-Rat simile:
“Every time Mr. Cheney opens his mouth, vermin leap out.” (Dowd 2004a).
Let us now turn to the editorials of the New York Times. The editorial is the
number one opinion indicator of any newspaper, so the NYT’s open endorsement of
Bush’s opponent in the editorial titled “John Kerry for President” (NYT 2004c) is a
clear signal of its disapproval of the Bush administration. Another clear example was
the editorial “The Plain Truth” printed on 17 June 2004, which countered some of the
major transfers of the Bush administration’s propaganda:
Of all the ways Mr. Bush persuaded Americans to back the invasion of Iraq last
year, the most plainly dishonest was his effort to link his war of choice with the
battle against terrorists worldwide (NYT 2004a).
After Abu Ghraib the NYT also devoted an entire editorial to a forceful call for
Rumsfeld’s resignation. In “Donald Rumsfeld Should Go” printed on 7 May 2004, he
is held personally accountable for Abu Ghraib. The emotive imagery of the Vietnam
War is also evoked: “The country is not obliged to continue struggling through this
quagmire with the secretary of defense who took us into the swamp” (NYT 2004b).
The final examples of counterpropaganda to be considered here will be a very
brief look at what some external contributors have published in the New York
Times. Richard Clarke published an Op-ed in the NYT where he used the phrase “The
war on terrorism and the separate war in Iraq” (Clarke 2004b). By employing the
words “separate war”, Clarke conspicuously dismantles the Bush administration’s
transfer.
A very special counterpropagandistic item appeared in the NYT on 26
September 2002. This was a paid announcement signed by 33 realist scholars of
international relations spearheaded by John Mearsheimer. It strongly questioned the
rationale for going to war. It focused on elements such as:
103
•
•
•
•
no credible evidence that Iraq is cooperating with al Qaeda
prospects that invading Iraq could spread instability in the Middle East
we [the USA] have no plausible exit strategy
we will have to occupy this divided country for many years
(NYT 2002)
A final point made in the text was perhaps the most convincing of all the
arguments. This is a verbatim assertion that probably none of the 33 three scholars
would renounce if they were confronted with it three years later:
Al Qaeda poses a greater threat to the U.S. than does Iraq. War with Iraq will
jeopardize the campaign against al Qaeda by diverting resources and attention from
that campaign and by increasing anti-Americanism around the globe (NYT 2002).
6.2 Audience reactions, Effects and evaluation.
70 percent of the American people think Iraq attacked the Pentagon and the World
Trade Center. You wanna know why? Because that’s what the administration wants
them to think! – Randy Beers, former Special assistant to the President for
combating terrorism (from Clarke 2004:241).
This section deals with audience reactions and effects of the propaganda. It considers
polls, but even more so, the analytical documents accompanying the questionnaires.
These documents often combine findings from different questions and different polls.
The main finding documented from many quarters is that the propaganda campaign
of the Bush administration was fairly effective within the USA but less effective
abroad. It basically worked on Americans, it largely failed on Muslims and
Europeans.
Another quite clear conclusion that can be read out of the material considered
here is that support for the war on terrorism withered earlier outside of the USA than
within its borders (PIPA 2004a:13). This is especially true for the war in Iraq, which
never had massive public support abroad. Afghanistan was different. Less than two
months after 9/11, some 91% of the American population supported the war in
Afghanistan and using military force against the perpetrators of 9/11 (PIPA 2001).97
97
“When Americans were asked by the Gallup Report about ‘the most important problem facing the country’ the
proportion nominating ‘terrorism’ shot up from zero in the three months prior to September 2001 to almost half the
population (46%) immediately after 9/11” (Norris et al. 2003: 290).
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6.2.1 Within the USA
In the United States, audience reactions sometimes were quite odd. One striking
instance is “duct tape week”, which came after the US government encouraged
people to buy certain items for protection against chemical terrorism. In February
2003 the US terror alert status was elevated to “high” – and the result was “rolls of
duct tape and plastic sheeting being swept off store shelves across the country” (CNN
2003a). The US Government’s Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge tried to calm
the anxiety of Americans. The government had itself contributed considerably to
bringing about this anxiety through its fear appeals.
Opinion polls have revealed that inaccurate beliefs that the Bush
administration repeatedly implied or referred to took hold in the minds of many
Americans. “This gap between reality and public opinion was not an accident”
(Rampton & Stauber 2003:79). Inaccurate information is not a definitional criterion
for propaganda, but a tangible and solid presence of inaccurate political beliefs in the
public will very often have a propagandistic source. Only political mass
communication such as grey or black propaganda can bring such perceptions about.
When the propaganda campaign was most effective on Americans was from
9/11 and until roughly the summer of 2003. During this period the figures were
remarkably high for acceptance of the truths, justifications and reasons posed to
legitimize the war on terrorism. The following quote is from the press release of
PIPA’s report on misperceptions on Iraq:
An in-depth analysis of a series of polls conducted June through September found
48% incorrectly believed that evidence of links between Iraq and al Qaeda have
been found, 22% that weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq, and
25% that world public opinion favored the US going to war with Iraq. (PIPA 2003a)
In the same study it was also shown that between 20–25% of Americans
believed that Iraq was directly involved in the 9/11 attacks. Steven Kull argued: “It
does appear likely that support for the war would be substantially lower if fewer
members of the public had these misperceptions” (PIPA 2003a). The highest figure
PIPA has observed for people believing that WMD had been found in Iraq, was in
May 2003, when 34% of the respondents agreed with that shared that sentiment
105
(PIPA 2003b). PIPA has also provided very interesting diachronic data mapping
Americans’ backing of the decision to go to war in Iraq,98 as shown in Figure 6.1:
Figure 6.1:
+/– 3.7 %
(Pipa 2004b:12)
We can see that within a year, support went from nearly 2/3 favouring the war
in Iraq, to resistance towards the war with more people opposing it than supporting
it.99 This is hardly strange due to the casualties and level of violence in places such as
Fallujah. Many Americans now see Iraq as a digression in the war on terrorism.
We see that the propaganda campaign of the Bush administration was at times
very effective on Americans. Yet, more surprising was the resilient solidity of these
beliefs. A PIPA poll conducted immediately before the 2004 Presidential election
shows that, despite very compelling evidence to the contrary, many Americans were
still clinging to some of the misperceptions disseminated by the propaganda.100 Many
98
A very similar pattern was found in a poll conducted by NYT/CBS NEWS, and published in November 2004.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/11/22/opinion/polls/main657111.shtml
99
It should be stressed that these figures deal with the decision to go to war. Polls have repeatedly shown that most
Americans do not support withdrawing the troops as of 2005.
100
The survey had divided Americans into Bush supporters and Kerry supporters. It is hardly surprising that those loyal to
the Bush administration were far more positive to the tenets of the administration’s propaganda.
106
appeared to be unaware of – or unconcerned about – the hostile attitudes towards the
USA that the war in Iraq had created in the rest of the world (PIPA 2004a:1).
This is in accordance with Ellul’s tenet that individuals exposed to propaganda
will experience a psychological crystallization. “He who acts in obedience to
propaganda can never go back. He is now obliged to believe in that propaganda
because of his past action” (Ellul 1973:29). It is rewarding to apply Festinger’s theory
of cognitive dissonance to the findings of this particular PIPA poll:
A possible explanation is that Bush supporters cling to these beliefs because they are
necessary for their support for the decision to go to war with Iraq (PIPA 2004a:12).
“Apparently, to avoid this cognitive dissonance, Bush supporters suppress
awareness of unsettling information” (PIPA 2004a:13). Several polls have indicated
that the US public believes that the Bush administration stretched the truth and
“hyped” the evidence available to justify the war in Iraq.
Seventy-two percent (up from 63% in July) said that when the administration
presented evidence of Iraqi WMD to justify going to war, it was either presenting
evidence it knew was false (21%) or stretching the truth (51%) (PIPA 2003c).
We see a pattern in which Americans were in a sense somewhat aware of the
transfers being used by the Bush administration. There was compelling evidence to
rebut these claims, but accepting this evidence would lead many of them into
cognitive dissonance. The following question highlights this:
Q20: If, before the war, US intelligence services had concluded that Iraq did not
have weapons of mass destruction and was not providing substantial support to al
Qaeda, do you think the US:
Should still have gone to war with Iraq for other reasons: 21 %
Should not have gone to war with Iraq 74 %
A major goal of the propaganda campaign was to rally support for the war on
terrorism (see section. 4.1). But it was also important to secure re-election for Bush.
The support forged was solid enough to secure Bush a further term as President of the
United States. The re-election is a result that is accurate and undeniable: on that
account there is no margin of error to take into consideration.
107
6.2.2 Outside The USA
To sum up the major trends regarding the effectiveness of the propaganda campaign
outside the USA, we need only to cite the title of the report released by the Pew
Center project in March 2004: A year after Iraq War: Mistrust of America in Europe
ever Higher, Muslim Anger Persists (Pew 2004). This survey is a strong indicator of
a propaganda campaign unable to produce the desired support and attitudes at the
international level.
Kull and his research team provide a quick overview of some of the most
significant of these polls (PIPA 2004a:8). As Chris Brown (2004:51) writes: “The
initial response was positive, but 2 years on the mood is rather different; at least in
Europe.” Journalists have also noted that much of the animosity among Europeans is
personified in President Bush: “Mr. Bush is more widely and deeply disliked in
Europe than any U.S. president in history” (Friedman 2005).
This trend of plummeting support manifested itself not only in populations and
in polls. A good indicator for assessing how friendly states responded to the
propaganda as the campaign evolved is size of the coalitions going into Afghanistan
and Iraq. The war in Afghanistan had widespread support and was conducted with an
international community expressing fairly positive attitudes and providing
considerable military support.
The war in Iraq was quite another story. The coalition of the willing was not
large, compared to previous coalitions in Afghanistan and in the 1991 war against
Iraq. Chris Brown points out: “The only effective military support for the American
military campaign came from the UK and Australia” (Brown 2004:60). Contrary to
the will of the Bush administration, practically all states with small contingents of
military personnel in Iraq have scheduled their withdrawal within the year 2005.
The military support of the UK was not accompanied by the public support
one might have expected. For the UK the drop in public support for the war in Iraq
was significant. It was measured to be around 61% in May 2003 and plummeted to
about 43% in March 2004 (Pew 2004:1). Surely it is a very bad sign that the second
largest contributor of troops in Iraq could not produce a majority among its
108
population in favour of the war one year after its start. With its special relationship,
the UK is among the nations in the world most positively minded towards the USA.
Below are the results of a question posed three times by PEW (2004):
Q9: Which of the following phrases comes closer to your view? I favor the US-led
efforts to fight terrorism, OR I oppose the US-led efforts to fight terrorism?
Table: 6.1101
+/– 3.5% – 5%
UK France Germany Russia Turkey Pakistan Jordan Morocc
o
Favour 2004
63
50
55
73
37
16
12
28
Oppose 2004 30
47
43
20
56
60
78
66
Favour 2003
63
60
60
51
22
16
2
9
Oppose 2003 30
39
35
28
71
74
97
84
Favour 2002
69
75
70
73
30
20
13
N/A
Oppose 2002 23
23
25
16
58
45
85
N/A
Less
78
82
63
74
64
50
72
58
Confidence
In the bottom row of table 6.1 are the answers to a question about the war in Iraq:
As a consequence of the war, do you have more confidence or less confidence that
the U.S. is trustworthy?
The pattern of withering support for the war on terrorism among Europeans is
plain to see. Turkey is the only country where support for the war on terrorism
increased (by 7%) from 2002 till 2004. It should be noted that question 9 (Q9)
included words like “efforts to fight” instead of “war”. Had the word “war” been
used, or had Iraq been mentioned in the question, the figures would probably show
even less support. We also see that support for the war on terrorism has been sinking
steadily in France and Germany. Among Muslim countries and Russia, the all-time
101
This table is a re-structuring of results available from Pew (2004: 31 & 37).
109
low came in 2003. The subsequent rise in support in Russia and Muslim countries
from 2004 till 2003 compensated for the loss of support from 2002 through 2003.
However, support levels are still very low in the Muslim countries polled. Turkey
holds the middle position between the European and Muslim levels of support.102
More people clearly articulate opposition to the war on terrorism in 2004.
Fewer are indifferent towards the war on terrorism in 2004, as the undecided of 2002
have tended to land on opposing the war on terrorism in 2004. Pakistan is the best
example of this pattern, where the proportion of undecided decreased from 35% to
24%, while opposition to the war increased from 45% to 60% from 2002 to 2004.103
Support for the war on terrorism in Pakistan decreased slightly, from 20% to 16%.
The only countries that do not show an increase in opposition to the war on
terrorism are Turkey and Jordan. However, these two had the highest levels of
opposition to the war in 2002, and opposition has remained higher than in the other
six countries polled, so there is much room for improvement there. Despite the
decrease of opposition over the past two years in these two countries, they still have
among the highest levels of opposition found in this survey. Turkey’s 2% decrease in
opposition from 2002 until 2004 is not significant, with a 3.5% to 5% margin of
error. Russia’s increase of 4% indicates that there has not been a sinking level of
opposition to the war on terrorism in Russia from 2002 to 2004.
Interestingly, Russia follows the pattern of the Muslim countries more than the
developments in the UK, France and Germany. Russian resistance to the war in Iraq
probably had to do with remnants of the old Cold-War world order and Russian
interests in Iraqi oil production. In addition to that it is much appreciated in Kremlin
circles that the Bush administration – tacitly if not openly – defines Chechnya as a
front in the war against international terrorism,. The Aristotelian “terrorism is
terrorism” approach of the Bush administration has given Russia almost free hands in
102
One might have expected precisely that, from one of the world’s most secular Muslim states eagerly pursuing admission
to the EU, with its “back-legs” in the Middle East.
103
For undecided respondents in Pakistan 2002 the following applies: 100 – (20 + 45) = 35%. And for 2004 the following:
100 – (16 + 60) = 24%. The formula is as follows: 100 – (favour + opposed) = undecided
110
the ferocious war in Chechnya. This is a likely explanation for Russians’ high support
for the war on terrorism in 2002 and 2004.
The material that has been assessed here yield quite telling conclusions. If we
assume that surveys can measure the effect of propaganda, we find clear evidence
that the Bush administration’s propaganda campaign has been an utter failure among
Muslims. Perceptions among Muslims reached its absolute nadir during and
immediately after the war in Iraq.104
There is much to indicate that the Bush administration has become “an
administration that is now radioactive in the Muslim world” (NYT 2004c). The
revolving door for the office of Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy (see section
3.3.3) is a strong indication that US public diplomacy is partly in ruins. Washington
staffers working with public diplomacy towards the Arab world are well aware of this
massive challenge. Even Dick Cheney acknowledged this in March 2005 when he
said to reporters: “We have to get the public diplomacy piece right” and “Up until
now, that has been a very weak part of our arsenal” (VandeHei 2005). The following
statement is increasingly true:
If America does not define itself, the extremists will do it for us (Djerejian 2003:8)
104
The lowest figure found in the material used for this study was that 1% of Jordanians surveyed said they had a positive
view of the United States in May, 2003 (Pew 2004:24).
111
112
7. Conclusions
This has been a two-pronged project, with both theoretical and empirical
ambitions. It is therefore natural to divide the conclusions into separate sections. The
different conclusions do of course have impact and relevance to one another. The
final section (7.3) concludes this thesis by raising some further points and questions.
The focus there will be on forward-looking policy recommendations and observations
with relevance for the war on terrorism based on the findings of this study.
The main goals of the study have been to determine what propaganda is, to see
what strategies and devices the Bush administration has applied in the war on
terrorism, and to assess the effect the propaganda campaign has had on its various
target audiences. It is now prudent to return to the three main research questions to
see what answers to them has gained support from the study’s findings.
7.1 Theory implications
What is propaganda, how should it be defined?
Propaganda should be defined as a technique in the realm of strategic political mass
communication. One of its main uses is to rally public support for policies. The origin
and accuracy of information determines whether we are dealing with black, grey or
white propaganda. Furthermore, propaganda should be defined as a group
phenomenon exercised by organizations in order to direct the behaviour of a specific
target audience. Other theory tenets supported by the findings of this analysis include
the following:
–
–
–
–
–
Unlike rhetoric, propaganda is normally used to short-circuit discussion
Unlike public diplomacy, propaganda is one-way push-down mass
communication
Advertising has economic ends, whereas propaganda ultimately has political
ends
Terrorism is a strategy, not an ideology. War against a strategy is very
complex
Propaganda often functions as an inclusion/exclusion mechanism
113
Although propaganda is most conspicuous in totalitarian states, it is most
widely used in pluralistic societies. The present-day propagandist may exploit
mechanisms of cognitive dissonance, as well as the cacophony of information and
propaganda characteristic of modern democratic societies. Where the information
overload of political news overwhelms the individual, this may force people to rely
on their existing schemata to interpret the news. This may result in the individual
being sedated intellectually and decrease their resistance to propaganda. These factors
encourage and necessitate gross simplifications in propaganda.
Propaganda and rhetoric are inextricably linked and overlapping. This implies
that some of the propaganda strategies identified in the empirical material in this
thesis are borderline cases. Some researchers would probably have defined a few of
the strategies in Chapter 5 as “rhetorical” rather than “propagandistic”. However,
given the definitions of rhetoric and propaganda and the operationalization of
propaganda devices chosen in this thesis, it appears useful to define also those
strategies as propaganda.
The different strategies and their devices will be dealt with in more detail in
the next section. However, two of the strategies encountered are particularly
interesting as regards developing the framework for analysis further. In section 5.3.3
a special propaganda technique was encountered. Saddam Hussein was “smoked out
of his hole”, “captured like a rat” and subsequently sent to the “veterinary to be
deloused”. Is it fruitful to label this name calling? It could be appropriate to
introduce de-humanization as a separate propaganda device. Or would JohnsonCartee & Copeland’s (2004:171) broader category of “hate speech” suffice?
Furthermore, in section 5.1.4 a propaganda strategy based on commitment
rather than any distinguishable propaganda device was encountered. The strategy
simultaneously communicated an enthusiastic inspirational assurance of success for
the “in group” and prospects of crushing defeat for the enemies of the US (outgroup). This was expressed with a very high degree of certainty. This certainty may
have been unfounded, yet this is very conventional war propaganda.
114
The two propaganda strategies just mentioned are examples of cases where the
need to disregard the analytical framework of 12 propaganda devices was paramount
What was experienced in this project was that using propaganda devices
structuralizes the research, making it more transparent. Yet, it is crucial that the
research is not structuralized too much. Textual evidence is important, but it is not all.
One should avoid “tunnel vision” – losing sight of other important aspects of a
propaganda campaign while searching for specific propaganda devices.
7.2 The Bush administration’s use of propaganda
What propaganda strategies and devices have been applied by the Bush administration in
the war on terrorism?
The propaganda strategies and devices employed by the Bush administration are quite
diverse. Here 15 strategies of great importance have been analyzed. All audiences
were provided with a certain news frame or schemata for understanding the war on
terrorism. Name calling and nuance elimination were important propaganda devices
for establishing this frame,105 a frame which purported that what was going on was
indeed a “war”, and that it was being fought against terrorism.
Additionally, some fear appeals were also present early in the campaign.
Nuance elimination was particularly useful as an exclusion/inclusion mechanism.
Such propaganda strategies show many similarities to Aristotle’s laws of thought,
with one basic principle being that nothing can both be and not be. It is fair to say that
the Bush administration at times have been successful in winning the “battle of
words”, especially early on. The fact that the Bush doctrine is misleadingly known as
a doctrine of pre-emption is perhaps the most impressive example of such a success.
The foundation of the first phase of the propaganda campaign was utilized for
the introduction of the metaphor “Axis of Evil”. The introduction of this metaphor
was very important. It was a clear sign of what was to come, with important
105
The tenet that name-calling is almost inevitable in all propaganda increases its importance from this finding.
115
implications on how various audiences viewed the war on terrorism. It is hard to
debate whether it is “good” to fight evil, but deciding who and what are “evil” is a
more complex issue. The gradual shift from white to more grey propaganda was
noticeable from the autumn of 2002.
Fear appeals played an increasingly important role as the propaganda
campaign evolved. Bringing up the image of the mushroom cloud stands out as the
most deceitful propaganda from the propaganda campaign. The result was an
awkward situation where the terrorists and the Bush administration both contributed
to, and benefited from, fear among Americans and other audiences.
The fact that the two main adversaries of the war on terrorism shared this
agenda of fear-creating is a likely explanation of the widespread fear that manifested
itself through events like “duct tape week” in the USA. Populations are likely to
accept intrusive legislation and harsh countermeasures if they live in a crossfire of
fear. It seems clear that many Americans responded with the desired behaviour, as
the polls showed their deeply felt worry about for terrorism, and also that the US
public condoned much of the harsh and forceful military countermeasures applied.
When it comes to high-level abstraction words as signifiers of ideology,
section 5.2.2 found that freedom, liberty, humanity and peace were put together in an
emotive cluster of ideas and ideals. The word “democracy” was also mentioned at
times, but this was more typical of the later stages, when the war in Iraq could no
longer be related to WMD. Democracy-based propaganda seems to have played a less
important role in the build-up to this war against Iraq than in the previous one. 106
The US propaganda surrounding the war in Iraq was not a great success. A
major strategy of the propaganda campaign in these later phases was to portray Iraq
and Saddam Hussein as “terrorists”. This period involved questionable usage of the
words “terrorists” and “terrorism”, and the major transfers were not widely accepted
by Europeans or Muslims.
106
Regarding the 1991 war, Jowett & O’Donnell (1999:312–316) have argued that the word and concept of “democracy”
was crucial.
116
The information on WMD in Iraq was wrong, the links to al Qaeda were faint
at best: consequently, main reasons for the war were flawed. The fallacy of
impossible certainty concerning Iraq has had a boomerang effect on the credibility of
the Bush administration. Further damage has been inflicted by the lack of sufficient
apologies and responsibility-taking.
How effective has this propaganda campaign been?
The propaganda campaign of the war on terrorism was largely a success, up until the
introduction of the Axis of Evil metaphor in January 2002. Prior to that, support had
been widespread in most parts of the world. Following that, the decrease in support
has been noticeable, although support appears to have been plummeting earlier
among all other audiences than Americans. It is fair to say that the propaganda
campaign has largely been effective on Americans; that it was effective at the outset,
but gradually lost its effect on non-American audiences.
The resilience of support for the war on terrorism in America seems to have
been reinforced by mechanisms related to elimination of cognitive dissonance. A
government can capitalize on previous public support and make dubious connections
to subsequent policies or even wars, in order to maintain high levels of support for its
actions. The material considered in this thesis indicates that this was the case for the
Bush administration’s war in Iraq.
When considering and assessing the effect of the propaganda campaign, it is
pertinent to return to the goals of the propaganda campaign as introduced in section
4.1. We can see a clear pattern that the goals dealing with domestic objectives have
been achieved more convincingly:
– The Bush administration acquired enough votes for re-election in 2004
– There were no further major terrorist strikes on US soil in Bush’s first term
– The American people by and large still support the war on terrorism (as of
2005).
– Domestic counterpropaganda remained largely choked until the
summer/autumn of 2002
117
However:
– Among foreign publics, support of the war on terrorism has deteriorated
dramatically. In the Middle East support has never been strong.
– Domestic support is still quite solid, but is clearly lower than in 2001/2002
– Foreign audiences’ support was sacrificed in order to communicate as
effectively as possible with the home audience: Americans
– Some Americans now see the war in Iraq as a separate war.
– Most friendly states are very reluctant to assign troops to Iraq (as of 2005)
– Both domestic and foreign counterpropaganda has increased and intensified
Polls indicate that many beliefs and perceptions the Bush administration
wanted to spread to its audiences took hold in the minds of many Americans. Despite
claims to the contrary from Bush, it seems that “Opinion leadership is now the name
of the game in Washington” (Fritz et al. 2004:18). When perceptions are inaccurate –
as with the claims of WMD and ties to al Qaeda – this represents a major credibility
problem. Any future propaganda from the Bush administration regarding similar
matters is likely to be distrusted. Such processes made governing extremely hard for
L. B. Johnson’s administration during the Vietnam War.107
It is also clear that the Bush administration’s propaganda campaign was not as
unconditionally successful as the previous war against Iraq in 1991 had been. On that
occasion “the administration’s propaganda strategies were enormously successful in
gaining the majority of public support” (Jowett & O’Donnell 1999:327). The 1991
war in Iraq was however much shorter than this war against Iraq, or indeed the war
on terrorism. So the resolve of the support in 1991 war was in a sense never really
tested. A 100 hour war is easier to sell than years of occupation with considerable
casualties.
Another possible reason for the massive support in 1991 could be the
mesmerizing effect of CNN’s unprecedented live coverage of that war. A
comparative study of media utilization techniques in the two wars against Saddam
Hussein’s Iraq should be a highly fruitful topic for future studies of US propaganda
campaigns.
107
Caroline Page writes: “The credibility of President Johnson’s Administration eventually became a propaganda
disaster...[...]... as officially trumpeted ‘progress’ in the conflict was time and again contradicted by both events and
constant escalation, and as the Administration was shown to have lied on occasions.” (Page 1996: 300).
118
Another type of research that needs to be done is proper propaganda analysis
of al Qaeda, taking into account that al Qaeda is no longer just a terrorist organization
– it is also an idea. There are now many terrorist groups who are eager to enforce al
Qaeda’s agenda violently, even though they have never had any formal contact with
anyone from al Qaeda’s leadership. This may be particularly interesting to relate to
Jacques Ellul’s idea that: “in a group without a leader, but subjected to propaganda,
the sociological and psychological effects are the same as if there were a leader”
(Ellul 1973:211).
7.3 In a crossfire of fear
In a democracy, policy is ultimately set by the people, so anybody can alter it by
scaring enough of them (Bowden 2004:42).
What is really good about Bowden’s statement is that it does not specify who is doing
the scaring. Terrorists may scare people, resulting in a change of policy – but a
government may also use fear appeals to scare enough people into supporting its
counterterrorism policy. We recall that Göring pointed out, “it works the same way in
any country”. Hence, it could be true that in the war on terrorism: “The most
powerful force the West has to fear is fear itself” (Beck 2002:112).
Terrorism is a phenomenon that by definition is designed to create fear. Is the
fear of terrorism felt around the world legitimate – or are people more afraid of
terrorism than they need be? The answers to this question must neither become
instances of “crying wolf”, nor play down the actual risk that terrorism does
represent.
The war in Iraq resulted in a diplomatic crisis for the war on terrorism, not
least in the UN Security Council. The resulting trans-Atlantic gap proved to be a
major obstacle to effective cooperation in the war on terrorism. The war in Iraq was
initiated on the premise of a gigantic intelligence failure, but this is looking to turn
into a gigantic propaganda and credibility failure as well. The Bush administration
contributed to making future cooperative counterterrorism measures more difficult,
by losing sight of the necessity of real cooperation in the war on terrorism. The Bush
119
administration seems to have inverted the old saying and tried to go it alone under the
motto: “With enemies like these, who needs friends?” We are heading in the wrong
direction, if today’s counter-terrorism policies create tomorrow’s terrorists.
Is the Bush administration actually fighting fire with fire? Sometimes states
countermeasures to combat terrorism are counterproductive resulting in leverage and
public support to groups who should not have it. What seems clear from this study is
that: the war on terrorism can not be won. Happily, it can not be lost either. A
scenario with terrorists taking over stable modern democracies is just not feasible.
The “war “on terrorism should only be labelled as such if it benefits us to do so.
The war on terrorism will always rest on a balancing policy, seeking to
provide civil society with a satisfactory level of individual freedom and societal
security. One could say: absolute security will leave us with little freedom, and
absolute freedom will leave us with little security. It resembles a zero-sum game.
What is gained in societal security has a cost in the realm of freedom and liberty
for the individual, and vice versa. Where to draw the line is a continuous process for
the security agencies of government.
An unbalanced homeland security policy is a minor victory for terrorists.
Terrorists are successful if their target societies lack either individual freedom or
human security as a result of counterterrorist policies that the terrorists’ acts of
violence – or threats thereof – have made necessary. Such countermeasures may
demonstrate the relevance and power of the terrorist group in question.
The task of finding prudent security policies to contain the wave of terrorism is
immense. States may back the wrong horse and adopt policies that prove
counterproductive in the long run. Therefore, let us conclude this work with a quote
from Aristotle which should be kept in mind by all decision-makers seeking to
counter the ‘evil’ of terrorism:
The contrary of an evil is sometimes a good, sometimes an evil (Aristotle 1941:33.)
120
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Appendix I: List of Definitions
Definition I:
Propaganda is systematic strategic mass communication conveyed by an
organization to shape perceptions and manipulate the cognitions of a specific
audience. Its ultimate goal is to direct the audience’s behaviour to achieve a
response that furthers the political objectives of the propaganda organization.
Definition II:
Rhetoric is the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of
persuasion, persuasion being potentially – and ideally – the outcome of an
interactive communicative process.
Definition III:
An ideology is a coherent world view that determines how arguments will be
received and interpreted.
Definition IV:
Terrorism is a non-state actor’s systematic use – or threat of use – of destruction
on civilian non-combatants to create fear, generate attention to a political cause,
and to make someone other than the direct target of the crime yield to the
terrorists’ demands
Definition V:
Propaganda is the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions,
manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers
the desired intent of the propagandist.
Definition VI:
Propaganda is a set of methods employed by an organized group that wants to
bring about the active or passive participation in its actions of a mass of
individuals, psychologically unified through psychological manipulations and
incorporated in an organization.
Definition VII:
Psyops are planned operations to convey selected information and indicators to
foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning and
ultimately the behavior of foreign governments, organisations, groups and
individuals.
Definition VIII:
Spin is a coordinated strategy to minimize negative information and present in a
favourable light a story that is damaging.
Definition IX:
Public Diplomacy is a government’s process of communicating with foreign
publics in an attempt to bring about understanding for its nation’s ideas and
ideals, its institutions and culture, as well as its national goals and current
policies.
127
Appendix II: 2 Propaganda Devices
• Card stacking
• Name calling
• Glittering generality
• Transfer
• Testimonial
• Plain folks
• Bandwagon
• Fear appeals
• Implacatures
• Fallacy of impossible certainty
• Dead-level abstracting
• Nuance elimination
128
Appendix III: HSA System, Saddam like a rat, reaction to Abu Ghraib
129
Appendix IV: Diane Sawyer interviews George W. Bush
Following is an excerpt from an interview President Bush gave to Primetime's Diane
Sawyer on Dec. 16. The interview on ABC News was the president's first one-on-one
interview since the capture of deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein on Dec. 13.
The passage is coherent and should include no omissions. This transcript was
downloaded from ABC News’ homepages shortly after the interview.
DIANE SAWYER: When you take a look back, Vice President Cheney
said there is no doubt, Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass
destruction, not programs, not intent. There is no doubt he has weapons
of mass destruction. Secretary Powell said 100 to 500 tons of chemical
weapons and now the inspectors say that there's no evidence of these
weapons existing right now. The yellow cake in Niger, in Niger. George
Tenet has said that shouldn't have been in your speech. Secretary
Powell talked about mobile labs. Again, the intelligence — the
inspectors have said they can't confirm this, they can't corroborate.
(Crosstalk)
PRESIDENT BUSH: But what David Kay did discover was they had a
weapons program, and had that, that — let me finish for a second. Now
it's more extensive than, than missiles. Had that knowledge been
examined by the United Nations or had David Kay's report been placed
in front of the United Nations, he, he, Saddam Hussein, would have
been in material breach of 1441, which meant it was a casus belli. And
look, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein was a dangerous person,
and there's no doubt we had a body of evidence proving that, and there
is no doubt that the president must act, after 9/11, to make America a
more secure country.
DIANE SAWYER: Again, I'm just trying to ask, these are supporters,
people who believed in the war who have asked the question.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, you can keep asking the question and my
answer's gonna be the same. Saddam was a danger and the world is
better off cause we got rid of him.
DIANE SAWYER: But stated as a hard fact, that there were weapons of
mass destruction as opposed to the possibility that he could move to
acquire those weapons still —
130
PRESIDENT BUSH: So what's the difference?
DIANE SAWYER: Well —
PRESIDENT BUSH: The possibility that he could acquire weapons. If
he were to acquire weapons, he would be the danger. That's, that's
what I'm trying to explain to you. A gathering threat, after 9/11, is a
threat that needed to be de — dealt with, and it was done after 12 long
years of the world saying the man's a danger. And so we got rid of him
and there's no doubt the world is a safer, freer place as a result of
Saddam being gone.
DIANE SAWYER: But, but, again, some, some of the critics have said
this combined with the failure to establish proof of, of elaborate
terrorism contacts, has indicated that there's just not precision, at best,
and misleading, at worst.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Yeah. Look — what — what we based our
evidence on was a very sound National Intelligence Estimate. ...
DIANE SAWYER: Nothing should have been more precise?
PRESIDENT BUSH: What — I, I — I made my decision based upon
enough intelligence to tell me that this country was threatened with
Saddam Hussein in power.
DIANE SAWYER: What would it take to convince you he didn't have
weapons of mass destruction?
PRESIDENT BUSH: Saddam Hussein was a threat and the fact that he
is gone means America is a safer country.
DIANE SAWYER: And if he doesn't have weapons of mass destruction
[inaudible]
PRESIDENT BUSH: Diane, you can keep asking the question. I'm
telling you — I made the right decision for America —
DIANE SAWYER: ButPRESIDENT BUSH: — because Saddam Hussein used weapons of mass
destruction, invaded Kuwait. ... But the fact that he is not there is, means America's a
more secure country.
131
Appendix V: Osama bin Laden’s (2004a) October Surprise
Following is the full English transcript of Usama bin Ladin's speech in a videotape sent
to Aljazeera.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/79C6AF22-98FB-4A1C-B21F-
2BC36E87F61F.htm
Praise be to Allah who created the creation for his worship and commanded them to be
just and permitted the wronged one to retaliate against the oppressor in kind. To
proceed:
Peace be upon he who follows the guidance: People of America this talk of mine is for
you and concerns the ideal way to prevent another Manhattan, and deals with the war
and its causes and results.
Before I begin, I say to you that security is an indispensable pillar of human life and
that free men do not forfeit their security, contrary to Bush's claim that we hate
freedom.
If so, then let him explain to us why we don't strike for example - Sweden? And we
know that freedom-haters don't possess defiant spirits like those of the 19 - may Allah
have mercy on them.
No, we fight because we are free men who don't sleep under oppression. We want to
restore freedom to our nation, just as you lay waste to our nation. So shall we lay waste
to yours.
No one except a dumb thief plays with the security of others and then makes himself
believe he will be secure. Whereas thinking people, when disaster strikes, make it their
priority to look for its causes, in order to prevent it happening again.
But I am amazed at you. Even though we are in the fourth year after the events of
September 11th, Bush is still engaged in distortion, deception and hiding from you the
real causes. And thus, the reasons are still there for a repeat of what occurred.
So I shall talk to you about the story behind those events and shall tell you truthfully
about the moments in which the decision was taken, for you to consider.
I say to you, Allah knows that it had never occurred to us to strike the towers. But after
it became unbearable and we witnessed the oppression and tyranny of the
American/Israeli coalition against our people in Palestine and Lebanon, it came to my
mind.
The events that affected my soul in a direct way started in 1982 when America
permitted the Israelis to invade Lebanon and the American Sixth Fleet helped them in
that. This bombardment began and many were killed and injured and others were
terrorised and displaced. I couldn't forget those moving scenes, blood and severed
limbs, women and children sprawled everywhere. Houses destroyed along with their
occupants and high rises demolished over their residents, rockets raining down on our
home without mercy.
The situation was like a crocodile meeting a helpless child, powerless except for his
screams. Does the crocodile understand a conversation that doesn't include a weapon?
And the whole world saw and heard but it didn't respond.
In those difficult moments many hard-to-describe ideas bubbled in my soul, but in the
132
end they produced an intense feeling of rejection of tyranny, and gave birth to a strong
resolve to punish the oppressors.
And as I looked at those demolished towers in Lebanon, it entered my mind that we
should punish the oppressor in kind and that we should destroy towers in America in
order that they taste some of what we tasted and so that they be deterred from killing
our women and children.
And that day, it was confirmed to me that oppression and the intentional killing of
innocent women and children is a deliberate American policy. Destruction is freedom
and democracy, while resistance is terrorism and intolerance.
This means the oppressing and embargoing to death of millions as Bush Sr did in Iraq in
the greatest mass slaughter of children mankind has ever known, and it means the
throwing of millions of pounds of bombs and explosives at millions of children - also in
Iraq - as Bush Jr did, in order to remove an old agent and replace him with a new
puppet to assist in the pilfering of Iraq's oil and other outrages.
So with these images and their like as their background, the events of September 11th
came as a reply to those great wrongs, should a man be blamed for defending his
sanctuary? Is defending oneself and punishing the aggressor in kind, objectionable
terrorism? If it is such, then it is unavoidable for us. This is the message which I sought
to communicate to you in word and deed, repeatedly, for years before September 11th.
And you can read this, if you wish, in my interview with Scott in Time Magazine in 1996,
or with Peter Arnett on CNN in 1997, or my meeting with John Weiner in 1998. You can
observe it practically, if you wish, in Kenya and Tanzania and in Aden. And you can read
it in my interview with Abdul Bari Atwan, as well as my interviews with Robert Fisk. The
latter is one of your compatriots and co-religionists and I consider him to be neutral. So
are the pretenders of freedom at the White House and the channels controlled by them
able to run an interview with him? So that he may relay to the American people what
he has understood from us to be the reasons for our fight against you?
If you were to avoid these reasons, you will have taken the correct path that will lead
America to the security that it was in before September 11th. This concerned the causes
of the war.
As for it's results, they have been, by the grace of Allah, positive and enormous, and
have, by all standards, exceeded all expectations. This is due to many factors, chief
among them, that we have found it difficult to deal with the Bush administration in light
of the resemblance it bears to the regimes in our countries, half of which are ruled by
the military and the other half which are ruled by the sons of kings and presidents.
Our experience with them is lengthy, and both types are replete with those who are
characterised by pride, arrogance, greed and misappropriation of wealth. This
resemblance began after the visits of Bush Sr to the region.
At a time when some of our compatriots were dazzled by America and hoping that these
visits would have an effect on our countries, all of a sudden he was affected by those
monarchies and military regimes, and became envious of their remaining decades in
their positions, to embezzle the public wealth of the nation without supervision or
accounting.
So he took dictatorship and suppression of freedoms to his son and they named it the
Patriot Act, under the pretence of fighting terrorism. In addition, Bush sanctioned the
installing of sons as state governors, and didn't forget to import expertise in election
fraud from the region's presidents to Florida to be made use of in moments of difficulty.
133
All that we have mentioned has made it easy for us to provoke and bait this
administration. All that we have to do is to send two mujahidin to the furthest point east
to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaida, in order to make the generals race
there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their
achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies.
This is in addition to our having experience in using guerrilla warfare and the war of
attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers, as we, alongside the mujahidin, bled Russia for
10 years, until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat. All Praise is due
to Allah. So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy.
Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah.
That being said, those who say that al-Qaida has won against the administration in the
White House or that the administration has lost in this war have not been precise,
because when one scrutinises the results, one cannot say that al-Qaida is the sole factor
in achieving those spectacular gains.
Rather, the policy of the White House that demands the opening of war fronts to keep
busy their various corporations - whether they be working in the field of arms or oil or
reconstruction - has helped al-Qaida to achieve these enormous results. And so it has
appeared to some analysts and diplomats that the White House and us are playing as
one team towards the economic goals of the United States, even if the intentions differ.
And it was to these sorts of notions and their like that the British diplomat and others
were referring in their lectures at the Royal Institute of International Affairs. [When they
pointed out that] for example, al-Qaida spent $500,000 on the event, while America, in
the incident and its aftermath, lost - according to the lowest estimate - more than $500
billion.
Meaning that every dollar of al-Qaida defeated a million dollars by the permission of
Allah, besides the loss of a huge number of jobs. As for the size of the economic deficit,
it has reached record astronomical numbers estimated to total more than a trillion
dollars.
And even more dangerous and bitter for America is that the mujahidin recently forced
Bush to resort to emergency funds to continue the fight in Afghanistan and Iraq, which
is evidence of the success of the bleed-until-bankruptcy plan - with Allah's permission.
It is true that this shows that al-Qaida has gained, but on the other hand, it shows that
the Bush administration has also gained, something of which anyone who looks at the
size of the contracts acquired by the shady Bush administration-linked megacorporations, like Halliburton and its kind, will be convinced. And it all shows that the
real loser is ... you.
It is the American people and their economy. And for the record, we had agreed with
the Commander-General Muhammad Ataa, Allah have mercy on him, that all the
operations should be carried out within 20 minutes, before Bush and his administration
notice.
It never occurred to us that the commander-in-chief of the American armed forces
would abandon 50,000 of his citizens in the twin towers to face those great horrors
alone, the time when they most needed him.
But because it seemed to him that occupying himself by talking to the little girl about
the goat and its butting was more important than occupying himself with the planes and
their butting of the skyscrapers, we were given three times the period required to
execute the operations - all praise is due to Allah.
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And it's no secret to you that the thinkers and perceptive ones from among the
Americans warned Bush before the war and told him: "All that you want for securing
America and removing the weapons of mass destruction - assuming they exist - is
available to you, and the nations of the world are with you in the inspections, and it is in
the interest of America that it not be thrust into an unjustified war with an unknown
outcome."
But the darkness of the black gold blurred his vision and insight, and he gave priority to
private interests over the public interests of America. So the war went ahead, the death
toll rose, the American economy bled, and Bush became embroiled in the swamps of
Iraq that threaten his future. He fits the saying "like the naughty she-goat who used her
hoof to dig up a knife from under the earth".
So I say to you, over 15,000 of our people have been killed and tens of thousands
injured, while more than a thousand of you have been killed and more than 10,000
injured. And Bush's hands are stained with the blood of all those killed from both sides,
all for the sake of oil and keeping their private companies in business.
Be aware that it is the nation who punishes the weak man when he causes the killing of
one of its citizens for money, while letting the powerful one get off, when he causes the
killing of more than 1000 of its sons, also for money.
And the same goes for your allies in Palestine. They terrorise the women and children,
and kill and capture the men as they lie sleeping with their families on the mattresses,
that you may recall that for every action, there is a reaction.
Finally, it behoves you to reflect on the last wills and testaments of the thousands who
left you on the 11th as they gestured in despair. They are important testaments, which
should be studied and researched.
Among the most important of what I read in them was some prose in their gestures
before the collapse, where they say: "How mistaken we were to have allowed the White
House to implement its aggressive foreign policies against the weak without
supervision."
It is as if they were telling you, the people of America: "Hold to account those who have
caused us to be killed, and happy is he who learns from others' mistakes." And among
that which I read in their gestures is a verse of poetry. "Injustice chases its people, and
how unhealthy the bed of tyranny." As has been said: "An ounce of prevention is better
than a pound of cure." And know that: "It is better to return to the truth than persist in
error." And that the wise man doesn't squander his security, wealth and children for the
sake of the liar in the White House.
In conclusion, I tell you in truth, that your security is not in the hands of Kerry, nor
Bush, nor al-Qaida. No. Your security is in your own hands. And every state that doesn't
play with our security has automatically guaranteed its own security.
And Allah is our Guardian and Helper, while you have no Guardian or Helper. All peace
be upon he who follows the Guidance.
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Appendix VI: Micheal Moore’ s statement at the Academy Awards
The following statement was uttered by Michael Moore at the 75th Academy Awards.
Whoa. On behalf of our producers Kathleen Glynn and Michael Donovan from
Canada, I'd like to thank the Academy for this. I have invited my fellow documentary
nominees on the stage with us, and we would like to - they're here in solidarity with
me because we like non-fiction.
We like non-fiction and we live in fictitious times. We live in the time where we have
fictitious election results that elects a fictitious president. We live in a time where we
have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons.
Whether it's the fictition of duct tape or fictition of orange alerts we are against this
war, Mr Bush. Shame on you, Mr Bush, shame on you. And any time you got the
Pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, your time is up. Thank you very much.
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